Wild shake up lines, get vintage Fleury to beat Habs
Marc-Andre Fleury was in vintage form and mass line changed seemed to do just enough on both ends of the ice to lift the Minnesota Wild 3-1 over the Montreal Canadiens Tuesday night.
Fleury stood on his head for a few saves and the only puck that got by him was a short-angle shot from Cole Caufield that deflected slightly off a Wild stick and spun under Fleury's glove. Otherwise he was perfect, finishing with 26 saves including a game-saver on a penalty shot by Mike Hoffman when the Wild were hanging onto a one-goal lead.
🌸BLOCKED🌸#mnwild pic.twitter.com/wg7JDWdgDx
— Minnesota Wild (@mnwild) October 26, 2022
Minnesota mixed up the lines in Monday's practice and sent Freddy Gaudreau onto the top line to center Kirill Kaprizov and Mats Zuccarello, and it was Gaudreau who assisted on the game-winning goal scored by Brandon Duhaime in the second period.
2️⃣nd point of the night for Dewey 1️⃣#mnwild pic.twitter.com/hta4tfERSt
— Minnesota Wild (@mnwild) October 26, 2022
Duhaime, who played on a line with Joel Eriksson Ek and Ryan Hartman, assisted on the first goal of the game, which was tapped in by Eriksson Ek after a generous bounce off the end boards on Duhaime's shot in the first period. Eriksson Ek's second goal – an empty-netter with 30 seconds to go – seal the win for the Wild.
Ekker-Duhaime duo right here 🤜🤛#mnwild pic.twitter.com/okBbuh6Kmw
— Minnesota Wild (@mnwild) October 25, 2022
Here's how the Wild lines looked in the game:
- L1: Kirill Kaprizov, Freddie Gaudreau, Mats Zuccarello
- L2: Marcus Foligno, Marco Rossi, Matt Boldy
- L3: Brandon Duhaime, Joel Eriksson Ek, Ryan Hartman
- L4: Tyson Jost, Sam Steel, Connor Dewar
The victory gets Minnesota to 2-3-1 after starting 0-3.
Up next: Wild at Ottawa, Thursday at 6 p.m. Central Time.
Title: Bring Me The Sports co-owner, editor Email: joe@bringmethenews.com Twitter: @JoeBMTN Education: Southwest Minnesota State University Location: Minneapolis, Minnesota Expertise: All things Minnesota sports Nelson has covered Minnesota sports for two decades, starting his media career in sports radio. He worked at small market Minnesota stations in Marshall and St. Cloud before joining one of the nation's highest-rated sports stations, KFAN-FM 100.3 in the Twin Cities. There, he was the producer of the top-rated mid-morning sports show with Minnesota Vikings announcer Paul Allen. His radio experience helped blossom a career as a sports writer, joining Minneapolis-based Bring Me The News in 2011. Nelson and Adam Uren became co-owners of Bring Me The News in 2018 and have since more than tripled the site's traffic and launched Bring Me The Sports in cooperation with the Sports Illustrated/FanNation umbrella. Nelson has covered the Super Bowl and numerous training camps, NFL combines, the MLB All-Star Game and Minnesota playoff games, in addition to the day-to-day happenings on and off the field of play. Nelson also has extensive knowledge of non-sports subjects, including news and weather. He works closely with Bring Me The News meteorologist Sven Sundgaard to produce a bevy of weather and climate information for Minnesota readers. Nelson helped launch and manage the Bring Me The News Radio Network, which provided more than 50 radio stations around Minnesota with daily news, sports and weather reports from 2011-17.