Wild return to the road, roll past St. Louis Blues

ST. LOUIS – Back on the road, the Wild returned to their roots.

They eked out a textbook 4-2 win over the Blues on Tuesday night at Enterprise Center to begin a three-game trip by resetting from a loss over the weekend to a different Central Division rival in the Stars.

The Wild’s eight away wins are tied for first in the NHL, and their 18 points are tops. Overall, the Wild (12-3-3) are tied for second in the league with 27 points after winning four of their past six games.

“We just like to play on the road,” Jonas Brodin said. “When we have a bad game, I feel like we come back and have a good next game. We don’t let it slip to two, three games right now. So, that’s a good thing.”

Brodin scored the final tiebreaker with 6 minutes, 16 seconds to go in the third period, the defenseman winding up from outside the left faceoff circle after sitting out the previous two games injured.

Then Kirill Kaprizov completed a two-goal effort into an empty net with 1:23 remaining, climbing to 33 points to rank one shy of Colorado’s Nathan MacKinnon for the NHL lead in scoring. Kaprizov’s 12 multipoint games are the most in the league, and he’s tied for first in multigoal games with four.

“More often than not in this league, it’s a race to three [goals],” coach John Hynes said. “There’s a lot of tight games and the smarter you are, the harder you are, the better you can manage those situations and stay with it, the more you’re going to give yourself the best chance to win.”

NHL standings

BOXSCORE: Wild 4, St. Louis 2

In net, goaltender Filip Gustavsson picked up 22 saves to improve to 9-3-2 with the best goals-against average in the NHL (2.07) and second-best save percentage (.926).

Gustavsson has given up two goals or fewer in 11 starts, more than any other goalie. Unlike his last appearance in St. Louis, when he scored the first goalie goal in Wild history on Oct. 15 to polish off a 4-1 victory, the netminder made an early statement by withstanding an upbeat start by the Blues.

He rattled off five saves before the Wild even tested St. Louis goalie Jordan Binnington, but in typical Wild fashion on the road, they scored first for a league-leading 12th time and improved to 10-1-2 when that happens; their 10 victories are tied with the Rangers for the most in that scenario.

The new line of Marcus Johansson, Marco Rossi and Ryan Hartman capped off a terrific shift with a goal, a five-hole dribbler by Hartman at 12:24 that Rossi set up by catching Hartman in stride.

“We played a really, really solid game offensively,” Hartman said. “Their first goal was kind of a poor backcheck by myself, so was just trying to maybe recover from that a little bit after.”

Just 4:48 into the second period, St. Louis found the equalizer off the rush on a top-shelf shot by Hibbing’s Scott Perunovich.

In the third, the Wild were opportunistic on the go-ahead goal.

Just 19 seconds after their power play (0-for-2) expired but with St. Louis penalty killers still on the ice, Kaprizov tipped in a Jake Middleton shot.

The Blues caught back up to the Wild on the power play when Jake Neighbours deflected in a centering feed at 10:37.

That stopped a 17-for-17 run by the Wild penalty kill, which had denied St. Louis during its earlier power play.

But as has been the case, especially on the road, the Wild were unfazed.

“We were in fine shape,” Gustavsson said.

Brodin, who sat out the Wild’s last homestand due to an upper-body injury, took a handoff from captain Jared Spurgeon and skated deeper into Blues territory before unleashing his second goal of the season behind Binnington, who had 24 saves.

The Wild also had Joel Eriksson Ek back after he was hurt on Saturday when the Wild’s rally against Dallas fizzled 2-1, and Ben Jones drew in to make his Wild debut.

“I tried to go far side, but I hit the d-man’s leg there,” said Brodin, who has the third-most goals in franchise history among defensemen with 56. “I got a little bit lucky.”

Johansson also assisted on the game-winner, the third point for his line with Hartman and Rossi.

“We had a strong forecheck,” Rossi said, “and we created a lot of chances.”

Instead of Gustavsson attempting another empty-net goal, Kaprizov did the honors, sinking a 90-footer from the neutral zone for his league-leading fifth empty-netter.

Kaprizov is up to 12 points during a six-game point streak, and he has at least a point in 10 straight road games; that ties Eriksson Ek (2022-23) for the longest road point streak in team history.

And the Wild?

They played like themselves again.

“It’s been a point of emphasis of understanding when you’re in tight games how you need to play,” Hynes said. “Not try to open things up, but you gotta work for your chances. Check for your chances. You gotta manage the puck. You can’t crack, and there are some times this year where we have. We’ve learned from those.”