Wild top Coyotes to apply more pressure in West wild card race
Another step in the right direction for the Minnesota Wild (32-27-7) Tuesday night as they defeated the Arizona Coyotes 4-1 in St. Paul to move within four points of the second wild card spot in the Western Conference playoff race.
Kirill Kaprizov's goal about six-and-a-half minutes into the first period was his 12th in the last 12 games and gave the Wild a 1-0 lead, and he added another on an empty net late in the third period to give him a team-best 33 goals this season.
Nick Bjugstad tied the game 1-1 at 8:08 of the second period but Minnesota reclaimed the lead when Ryan Hartman found the back of the net on a power play after Arizona's Michael Kesselring was called for cross-checking Marco Rossi at 16:40 of the period.
Marcus Foligno added a second empty-net goal for Minnesota with 2:05 to play.
The win has the Wild (71 points) within four points of Vegas (75) for the last playoff spot in the West but Vegas was still in action against the Seattle Kraken when this story was published.
Title: Bring Me The Sports co-owner, editor Email: joe@bringmethenews.com Twitter: @JoeBMTN Education: Southwest Minnesota State University Location: Minneapolis, Minnesota Expertise: All things Minnesota sports Nelson has covered Minnesota sports for two decades, starting his media career in sports radio. He worked at small market Minnesota stations in Marshall and St. Cloud before joining one of the nation's highest-rated sports stations, KFAN-FM 100.3 in the Twin Cities. There, he was the producer of the top-rated mid-morning sports show with Minnesota Vikings announcer Paul Allen. His radio experience helped blossom a career as a sports writer, joining Minneapolis-based Bring Me The News in 2011. Nelson and Adam Uren became co-owners of Bring Me The News in 2018 and have since more than tripled the site's traffic and launched Bring Me The Sports in cooperation with the Sports Illustrated/FanNation umbrella. Nelson has covered the Super Bowl and numerous training camps, NFL combines, the MLB All-Star Game and Minnesota playoff games, in addition to the day-to-day happenings on and off the field of play. Nelson also has extensive knowledge of non-sports subjects, including news and weather. He works closely with Bring Me The News meteorologist Sven Sundgaard to produce a bevy of weather and climate information for Minnesota readers. Nelson helped launch and manage the Bring Me The News Radio Network, which provided more than 50 radio stations around Minnesota with daily news, sports and weather reports from 2011-17.