The Minnesota Wild and Tampa Bay Lightning, two powerhouses preparing for the playoffs in their respective conferences, will complete their two-game season series in Tuesday night’s matchup in the Sunshine State.
Minnesota (40-19-12, 92 points) won the first meeting with a 5-1 home thumping of the Lightning (43-21-5, 91 points) on March 3.
Wild star winger Kirill Kaprizov set the franchise record with the final tally, an empty-netter, for his 220th marker to surpass Marian Gaborik for the all-time lead in goals.
Since that victory, the Central Division’s third-place club has posted a 4-3-2 record, not enough to catch the Dallas Stars but leaving a 12-point advantage over the Utah Mammoth, who hold the Western Conference’s top wild-card spot.
Kaprizov is tied for the team lead in goals with 38, matched by Matt Boldy. The electrifying Russian scorer paces the squad with 80 points.
Third in goals scored, winger Vladimir Tarasenko made his 20th count in Saturday’s 2-1 overtime winner against Dallas. The victory closed out a seven-game stretch with a 3-3-1 mark, with all but one of the games on home ice.
Tarasenko recorded his 324th career goal and 54th game-winner, hitting the net from the slot after taking a swift cross-ice pass from Bobby Brink, who put up the game-tying tally in the second period.
Wild coach John Hynes said Brink brings a scrappiness to the team, which opens a three-game road swing that visits Tampa, Florida and Boston.
“He’s a tenacious competitor, we knew that coming in,” Hynes said. “That’s what you love about him. He’s fast and quick. … Because of his speed and hockey sense — that combination of his competitiveness makes him an effective guy for us.”
Tampa Bay was on the brink of sweeping its four-game road trip Sunday after rallying from a two-goal deficit, getting goals from Darren Raddysh and Pontus Holmberg, and forcing overtime against the Calgary Flames.
However, Ryan Strome netted the game-winner just 26 seconds into three-on-three to prevent the visitors from winning the finale on a swing that took them to Seattle, Vancouver and Edmonton.
Coach Jon Cooper said leaving Alberta with three points in two nights after topping the Edmonton Oilers 5-2 on Saturday night was needed.
“The final leg after playing back-to-back in 22 hours and we’re down 3-1 halfway through the game and we get a point out of it, so there’s a lot of good to take out of this especially with the way the Eastern Conference is going,” said Cooper.
The result was a noticeable shift for Ryan McDonagh, who scored the first goal.
“Coming out of the Olympic break here, we’ve been down in games and haven’t been able to crawl back and get points out of it,” said the defenseman, who has six markers. “It stinks to lose, but we showed signs of sticking with our structure, being patient, not going rogue and being rewarded with a goal late to give ourselves a chance in overtime.”
With the primary assist on Raddysh’s goal, Nikita Kucherov moved his point streak to four games (six goals, seven assists) and leads the NHL with 119 points, three ahead of the Oilers’ Connor McDavid.
The Lightning, who did not commit a penalty in a match for the first time this season, are 20-12-0 on home ice.
