BOSTON – Relying on a rookie-laden lineup missing six regulars against a rolling Bruins team could have been how the Wild sunk deeper into a funk.
Instead, that's how the team snapped out of it.
Matt Boldy scored his first goal in his NHL debut, the game-winner, to help the Wild slough off that season-long five-game rut with a 3-2 comeback on Thursday in front of 17,850 at TD Garden after losing star Kirill Kaprizov to injury.
Kaprizov left in the second period because of an upper-body injury after getting crunched by Boston's Trent Frederic, who received a minor penalty for boarding to go along with a major for fighting the Wild's Dmitry Kulikov after the hit.
"Really frustrated with how Kirill got hurt," said coach Dean Evason, who didn't have an update on the severity of Kaprizov's injury. "It's a predatorial hit. It's one that the league, we don't want that. The puck is sitting right there. You know what he's doing. He's going to hurt our best player.
"… That is not a hockey play. The puck's sitting right there. Why not just take the puck and go? In a vulnerable position, you hit a player from behind. We see it all the time, and it gets taken care of. I hope it gets taken care of here."
Frederic also fought Marcus Foligno early in the third period and ended up taking 16 minutes in penalties, nearly nine more than he played.
"To me, on the ice, it looked like a dirty hit," Kulikov said. "He was coming in and Kirill was in a vulnerable position, and he still went for a hit. You don't want to see your teammate go down like that. Just unfortunate that he left the game."