Game Recap: Wild 5, Lightning 3

ST. PAUL, Minn. -- Kirill Kaprizov had two goals and an assist for the Minnesota Wild in a 5-3 win against the Tampa Bay Lightning at Xcel Energy Center on Friday.

Kaprizov has scored multiple points in seven straight games (six goals, 11 assists), and became the fifth active player with at least 20 points (seven goals, 14 assists) through 10 games of a season.

“It’s the way that he plays, the way that he competes, his willingness to play on both sides of the puck,” Wild coach John Hynes said of Kaprizov. “He’s out on the 5-on-6, right, so he has some of those goals. But you’re not just putting him out there because you want to get him an empty-net goal. He’s proven that he’s committed to playing both sides of the puck 5-on-5 and he’s been very good in those situations. I think that’s what makes him special.

“We talk about a one-trick pony, he’s not a one-trick pony. He’s obviously a point guy and a highly talented offensive player, but his commitment to play for the team, and his commitment to do the things necessary when he doesn’t have the puck, is what’s really impressive to me.”

Joel Eriksson Ek and Brock Faber also scored, and Mats Zuccarello had two assists for Minnesota (7-1-2), which has won six of its past seven games. Filip Gustavsson made 28 saves.

“Yeah, it’s nice win, but I feel like we play not our [best] hockey in first period,” Kaprizov said. “Maybe it was because it was a long trip and something like that. But I feel like second and third period we played better, and Gus [made] huge saves and a couple blocked shots and we scored our goals.”

Brayden Point extended his point streak to four games (three goals, three assists), and Jake Guentzel extended his point streak to three (three goals, two assists) for the Lightning (7-4-0), who had won three in a row. Andrei Vasilevskiy made 17 saves.

“After the fact, you look at it, ‘Do I think that we deserved some points out of this game?’ I do,” Lightning coach Jon Cooper said. “I thought we deserved points the first time we played them. They end up getting four. We get zero. And you look at it, there were so many good things that happened on our side for the game, but timing is everything. 2-2 game with five minutes left and we give one up, it's tough. At times like this ... there's not moral victories. In the end, you're gonna wake up tomorrow and we got zero points.”

Point made it 1-0 on the power play at 19:15 of the first period. Victor Hedman’s rebound found Point in the slot, who buried it into the open net.

Eriksson Ek scored his fifth goal of the season to tie the game 1-1 47 seconds into the second period. Kaprizov beat Lightning defenseman Erik Cernak down the wing and sent a cross-ice pass to Eriksson Ek for the one-timer.

Faber put Minnesota ahead 2-1 at 2:41 of the third period with a wrist shot from atop the circles, but Guentzel made it 2-2 at 6:23 on the power play with a five-hole shot from the left face-off dot.

“You're not gonna lead every game the whole game, right? There's gonna be adversity,” Faber said. “There's gonna be, just like last [year], injuries and things like that and off nights. And being able to find a way to win like that, a more gritty win, a very imperfect win, we're definitely really happy with that.”

Kaprizov put Minnesota ahead 3-2 at 14:37 with a tap-in after a scramble in front of the net, and Matt Boldy scored into the empty net at 16:57 to make it 4-2.

With Vasilevskiy pulled for the extra attacker, Nick Paul made it 4-3 at 17:34, but Kaprizov scored an empty-net goal at 19:29 for the 5-3 final.

“I think we shot ourselves in the foot a few times,” Paul said. “In this league, you can't do that. Every little goal matters, every little play matters. It was a tough one tonight.”

NOTES: Ryan Hartman played 10:46 and was minus-1 in his first game back after missing the past five with an upper-body injury. … Kaprizov became the first player this season to reach 20 points. In doing so, he became the first Wild player ever to be the first in the league to that mark in a season.