Wild pounce early, stay in control to stomp Jets

Wild coach Dean Evason liked all that he saw in the Wild's 4-1 victory at Winnipeg on Tuesday.

"Pretty much everything," was how he put it on a TV broadcast. "From the goaltender to how we played: The right way. We did a lot of good things. We got pucks out. We got pucks in, we didn't mess around. Not a lot of turnovers.

"Just a real, almost a perfect game for coming off a break."

The Wild had taken four days away from games because of the holidays before traveling to Canada Life Centre. The team sported a depleted roster for various reasons. Yet the Wild were "fantastic" about executing a simplified game plan, per Evason, which helped them beat their northern rivals and pull within one point of them for second place in the Central Division.

Captain Jared Spurgeon started the scoring early, putting the Wild ahead 5 minutes, 29 seconds into the first period on a power play. The Jets had nearly scored seconds before on a shorty from Adam Lowry, but Spurgeon — with assists from Ryan Hartman and Sam Steel — was able to turn that back in the Wild's favor.

Just more than a minute later, Mats Zuccarello made it a two-goal lead after Kirill Kaprizov controlled a loose puck.

Winnipeg's Pierre-Luc Dubois made it 2-1 at 10:03 of the first and soon after a power play, bouncing the puck off Wild goaltender Filip Gustavsson's back.

The backup goalie, though, ended up saving 31 of 32 shots and improving to 7-1-0 in his past eight starts with a .936 save percentage and 1.74 goals-against average. All that after a layoff.

"It feels great, coming off a four-day break, and the guys really showed up out there," Gustavsson said. "… It's always hard. A four-day break is always a long time. You just want to face shots almost every day to just keep the feeling in your hands and in your brain."

Frederick Gaudreau scored a third goal for the Wild at 8:55 of the second period, benefiting from a steal from Zuccarello coming out of the penalty box. Edina native and former Gophers captain Sammy Walker scored his first NHL goal into an empty net late in the third period to seal the victory.

"It was unbelievable," Walker said. "I'm still trying to process it."

Walker was one of the recent call-ups to fill in for absent personnel.

Marcus Foligno, Mason Shaw and Jake Middleton did not play because of injury, suspension and illness, respectively. Foligno is still dealing with lower-body issues while fellow forward Shaw served the first of a two-game suspension for kneeing. Middleton didn't travel because of a non-COVID sickness.

Thus, the team called up Walker, Adam Beckman and Andrej Sustr to fill in, with the first two suiting up for the game.

Even Evason was somewhat questionable for the game after skipping the morning skate because he didn't feel well (non-COVID related), though he was already in town after spending the holiday weekend in Winnipeg. But he ended up making it behind the bench in time to witness the win.

The Star Tribune did not send the writer of this article to the game. This was written using a broadcast, interviews and other material.