Wild fans mistakenly throw caps for second goal of Staal's hat trick

Some Minnesota Wild fans didn't know Eric Staal hadn't scored his third goal yet, but Staal made sure to reward them for throwing their hats anyway.

Fans at XCel Energy Center wrongly tossed their caps thinking Staal had scored his third goal of the game, but he scored again less than three minutes later to cap the hat trick in the third period of Minnesota's 8-3 win against the St. Louis Blues.
Staal was announced as the scorer of the goal that put Minnesota up 2-0 at 7:13 of the first period, but Mikael Granlund was later credited with the goal. Staal scored his first of the game, his 31st of the season, in the second period, then added his 32nd goal at 7:46 of the third, which drew the hats from the overly exuberant fans.
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"Once the hats started coming, I was like 'uh oh,'" Staal said. "I knew it wasn't a hat trick because [Granlund] told me he touched that one before it went in. I celebrated a good assist on that one."
And Granlund wasn't relinquishing that goal, his 18th of the season and first of two in the night.
"I asked [Granlund] if he was going to give his goal up," Wild coach Bruce Boudreau said. "He said no."

Fortunately, the hats weren't tossed in vain. Staal scored his third, after hitting both posts, at 10:54 of the third to cap his 14th career hat trick, and more caps rained down from the ecstatic home crowd.
The line of Staal (three goals, two assists), Granlund (two goals, two assists) and Jason Zucker (one goal, four assists) combined for 14 points in the win.
"It was one of those nights," Staal said. "Our line was buzzing; we were feeling it; we had the puck following us around."