Wild Return to Winning Ways
ST. PAUL, Minn. (AP) — Mikko Koivu got the lone goal in the shootout for Minnesota, and the Wild beat the Tampa Bay Lightning 2-1 on Friday night to avoid losing consecutive home games for the first time this season.
Koivu used a masterful left-right move to flip the puck past the Lightning's Andrei Vasilevskiy, who denied Jason Pominville and Zach Parise before and after Koivu. Brayden Point, who scored for Tampa Bay in regulation, Jonathan Drouin and Nikita Kucherov all went wide right with their shootout attempts against Devan Dubnyk.
Nino Niederreiter scored in regulation and Dubnyk made 26 saves for the Wild, who improved to 18-6-1 at home and rebounded from an overtime loss to rival Chicago two nights earlier.
Vasilevskiy stopped 37 shots for the Lightning, who were looking for their first three-game winning streak in nearly three months. They still picked up a point to start a stretch of four straight road games when they go two weeks between home games.