The Lightning owned the best win streak in the NHL before the Wild sent Tampa Bay back to the drawing board.
Kirill Kaprizov scores twice as Wild cool off streaking Lightning
Tampa Bay, Stanley Cup champions in 2020 and 2021, had won four games in a row. But the Wild have been on a roll as well and won for the ninth time in 11 games. Goalie Filip Gustavsson stopped 34 of the 35 shots he faced.
January 5, 2023 at 6:50AM
In another tip-top effort, they routed the recent back-to-back Stanley Cup champs 5-1 on Wednesday in front of 18,427 at Xcel Energy Center to snap the Lightning's four-game run with the Wild's ninth win over the past 11 games.
Through their past 20, they're 15-5.
"You look at what they've done the last few years and for us to get that win and in dominant fashion, I think it's huge for us moving forward," said rookie Calen Addison, who factored in three goals to match a career high in points.
Kirill Kaprizov also had a productive evening, scoring twice while tying the team record for longest point streak on home ice, and Filip Gustavsson stopped 34 of 35 shots from Tampa Bay before leaving early.
Gustavsson exited after Kaprizov tallied an empty-net goal with 2 minutes, 3 seconds to go in the third period, which came seconds after Gustavsson made a glove save on Nikita Kucherov.
The goaltender skated off and threw up, Wild coach Dean Evason said.
"Don't know anything else," Evason continued. "Obviously, they're evaluating him."
Marc-Andre Fleury replaced Gustavsson to make his 963rd career appearance and tie Ed Belfour for the fifth-most games all-time, but Gustavsson held onto the win to improve to 8-2-1 over his past 11 appearances. He's also 8-1 since Nov. 19 with an NHL-best 1.66 goals-against average and .941 save percentage in that span.
"Calm, smothered pucks, just catching pucks, no rebounds," Evason said of Gustavsson. "Just real good against a team like that, obviously elite, elite shooters, and he made it look easy, right? We did some real good things in front of him, but for the most part he did most of it."
With the Wild opening the scoring in the first period before a three-goal surge in the second against the 2020 and 2021 Stanley Cup winners, Gustavsson had a lead to work with most of the night.
After Joel Eriksson Ek banked an Addison carom in off Elk River's Nick Perbix at 14:30 of the first, Kaprizov deflected in a slap-pass from Matt Boldy on the power play 7:09 into the second period.
That goal, Kaprizov's team-leading 21st, pushed his point streak in St. Paul to 14 games, tying Marian Gaborik's record from 2007-08. Since this streak started on Nov. 13 vs. the Sharks, Kaprizov has 10 goals and 15 assists for 25 points at Xcel Energy Center. Gaborik had 10-13-23 during his 14-game blitz.
Kaprizov is now tied for fifth in the league for power play goals with 10.
Addison also assisted on that goal and then scored one himself, a rising shot at 9:27.
"When we start rolling in the O-zone," Addison said, "not many teams can play with us."
This was Addison's second three-point game of the season, and he's the first Wild rookie defensemen with multiple three-point efforts. He's also one of only nine active defensemen to post more than one three-point game as a rookie.
Overall, Addison's 19 points are the third-most by a rookie defenseman in Wild history. His 16 assists are second in the NHL among rookies, while he leads rookie blue liners in scoring.
Boldy's assist on Addison's goal was his second of the game, giving him 11 points in his last 11 games.
At 13:37, the Lightning interrupted the Wild's roll with a one-timer from Brayden Point on the power play but the Wild reinstated a three-goal buffer before the second expired when Sam Steel deflected in a Jared Spurgeon shot with 4:25 to go in the period.
"Off the shin pad," Steel said. "I'll take it."
Steel established a new career high in goals (seven) in his first season with the Wild after signing as a free agent out of Anaheim; all but two of those tallies have come since he was tabbed to center Kaprizov and Mats Zuccarello on the team's No. 1 line. He's up to a point-per-game pace in his past nine, while Spurgeon's assist gives him eight points in his last nine.
The Wild could have increased their advantage, as Zuccarello and Kaprizov both had shots hit the post, but the team didn't cede the spotlight thanks to its penalty killers.
They kept the Wild comfortably ahead after denying a four-minute look for the Lightning that spilled over to the third period; Matt Dumba received a double-minor for high-sticking.
In the end, Tampa Bay finished 1-for-4 on the power play and the Wild went 1-for-3.
Brian Elliott made 28 saves for the Lightning, who dropped a 10th consecutive road game to the Wild.
"We're pretty confident in the room," Boldy said. "We go into games with the expectation of playing our style, which is hard to play against. I think if you ask the teams that come here that we play against, it's pretty blatant how we play.
"It's hard. It's skilled. When we're putting pucks into the net along with it, it's hard to play with us. We're playing confident, for sure."
The star forward came back from a brief injury absence, and two goals from Frederick Gaudreau helped Minnesota to another road victory.
