Kirill Kaprizov kept piling up milestones Sunday, and the Minnesota Wild kept protecting home ice.
Kaprizov scored his League-leading 10th goal of the season and delivered the winner in the second period as the Wild slipped past the Columbus Blue Jackets, 2-1, at Grand Casino Arena. Minnesota improved to 6-2-1, stayed unbeaten at home through four games, and won for the fourth time in its last five.
The decisive moment came at 3:06 of the second. Kaprizov worked from low in the left circle and beat Blue Jackets goalie Cam Talbot short side for a sharp-angled goal that turned a one-goal edge into the final margin.
“I think I gave him a little bit too much,” Talbot said. “He put it in a great spot.”
Kaprizov also stretched his point streak to six games, piling up 12 points with seven goals and five assists during that run.
“Just playing, play games, and just feel good,” Kaprizov said. “I feel like first couple games it was a little bit tough.
Don’t feel like power right away. But then after two, three, four games, feel better a little bit now.”
Minnesota opened the scoring late in the first period when Danila Yurov finished an odd-man rush at 18:12. Yakov Trenin set up the play, and Yurov buried a wrist shot for his fourth goal in nine games this season.
“He’s going to be a top-two line center the way that he thinks the game, sees the game,” Wild coach John Hynes said. “Now, we’re starting to see his skating, his confidence, his offensive instincts, on top of his hockey smarts and acumen without the puck, which is excellent.”
Columbus answered almost immediately. At 19:12, Adam Fantilli tied it 1-1 with a shot from the top of the left circle while the Blue Jackets were skating 6-on-5 on a delayed Wild penalty.
The game stayed tight from there, but the Wild did enough defensively to choke off Columbus. Jesper Wallstedt stopped 13 shots as Minnesota held the Blue Jackets to 14 shots on goal, which matched the second-lowest total in Wild franchise history.
The only lower mark was 13 against Anaheim on Jan. 18, 2003.
“Felt like we controlled a lot of the game,” Wallstedt said. “We knew they were coming off a back-to-back. We also knew they had a good game last night, so we knew we had to be on our toes early.
“It felt good for us all game. And when they had some pushes, we stood strong and put another zero in again.”
Wallstedt picked up his sixth win of the season. Minnesota’s offense was again fueled by its top end, while Matt Boldy led the club with six shots on goal and moved to 41 on the season, second in the NHL.
The Wild also continued a strong early-season trend on the power play, scoring with the man advantage in eight of their first nine games and going 9-for-28 overall.
Kaprizov’s winner was another entry in his growing franchise ledger. It was his 78th career game-winning goal contribution, moving him past Marian Gaborik for third in Wild history behind Mikko Koivu and Zach Parise. He also became the fastest player in franchise history to reach 10 goals, topping Brian Rolston’s mark from 2006-07.
On the Columbus side, Talbot made 32 saves, but the Blue Jackets dropped their third game in four tries and fell to 3-4-0.
“The execution wasn’t there,” Blue Jackets coach Rick Bowness said. “Was the effort there?
Yes, it was. We worked very hard.
But the execution - we couldn’t get any real flow going to the game. That would be the biggest disappointment, the execution.
… I thought we battled hard.”
Fantilli agreed the issue was more about what Columbus did with the puck than how hard it worked.
“I think we just didn’t execute the way we should have,” Fantilli said. “We were putting pucks in guys’ feet.
We were putting guys in tough positions. We weren’t working for our teammates to make their lives easier.
“We worked extremely hard but I feel like we could have worked smarter. We didn’t get enough shots. ‘Talbs’ stood on his head tonight -- he gave us a chance.”
The night also brought a milestone for Joel Eriksson Ek, who recorded his 200th career assist on Kaprizov’s goal. Kaprizov, meanwhile, has now scored at least once in each of his last four games against Columbus.
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