Wild hand Golden Knights rare home defeat


Reuters | Updated: 22-01-2019 07:58 IST | Created: 22-01-2019 07:58 IST
Wild hand Golden Knights rare home defeat

Charlie Coyle scored the winning goal with 5:31 remaining, and Devan Dubnyk made 30 saves to lead the Minnesota Wild to a 4-2 victory over the Vegas Golden Knights on Monday in Las Vegas. Mikko Koivu scored his 200th career goal and Eric Staal and Marcus Foligno also scored for Minnesota, which leapfrogged Dallas and Colorado into third place in the Central Division with its third win in four games. The Wild also improved to 4-0-1 in five all-time games against the Golden Knights.

Max Pacioretty and Alex Tuch scored goals for Vegas, which lost just for the second time in regulation in its past 14 home games (10-2-2). Colin Miller added two assists, and Marc-Andre Fleury, making his NHL-leading 44th start, stopped 18 shots. Tuch, a first-round pick of the Wild in 2014, gave the Golden Knights a 1-0 lead at the 3:37 mark of the first period with a power-play goal. It was a career-high 16th tally for Tuch, who put a wrist shot past Dubnyk's blocker side at the end of a two-on-one with Jonathan Marchessault.

Minnesota came back to take a 2-1 lead midway through the second period with two goals in the span of 73 seconds. Foligno got the first, just his second in 20 games, with a one-timer in the slot off a backhand pass from the left side of the goal by Joel Eriksson Ek. Staal followed with his 15th goal of the season, tapping in a crossing pass through the crease from Jordan Greenway into a wide open right side of the net.

Pacioretty tied it 2-2 at 12:36 of the middle period with his 14th goal of the season, firing a shot from the high slot through Dubnyk's pads. Minnesota, which survived a five-on-three power play by the Golden Knights for 71 seconds at the start of the third period, regained the lead on Coyle's first goal in 10 games. Coyle roofed a Jared Spurgeon pass into an open left side of the net during a goalmouth scramble.

The Golden Knights pulled Fleury with 1:23 to go, and Koivu sealed the victory with an empty-net goal off a pass from Zach Parise with 12.6 seconds remaining. --Field Level Media

(This story has not been edited by Devdiscourse staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)

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