A 5-2 win for the Minnesota Wild against the Vegas Golden Knights evened the Western Conference First Round at 1-1 on Tuesday night as the best-of-7-series now makes its way to St. Paul for a Thursday night match-up at the Xcel Energy Center.
Kirill Kaprizov had two goals an assist in Tuesday night's win, while Matt Boldy had a goal and assist and Filip Gustavsson made 30 saves for the Wild.
Minnesota lit the lamp at 9:56 of the first period as Kaprizon connected on a pass to Boldy who gave the Wild a 1-0 lead. Marcus Foligno added a goal and Mats Zuccarello kept the scoring going as the Wild led 3-0 after the first period.
A second period goal from Kaprizov extended the Wild lead to 4-0 before the Golden Knights were able to get on the board on a Noah Hanifin goal.
“From a competitive level, we were where we needed to be,” Minnesota coach John Hynes said. “But the big part is boys under pressure, playing smart, understanding how to manage those certain things, and I thought we did a fairly good job of that tonight. They had some strong pushes, and we got some timely saves when we needed them.”
Tomas Hertl cut the Wild lead down 4-2 with a third period goal, but it was Kaprizov's empty netter at 17:34 that pushed the Wild lead out to 5-2.
“We've got to play better, but I said it the other day and I believe that in the first part of the game they're hungrier than us and more competitive,” Vegas coach Bruce Cassidy said. “Halfway through the game we started to see the better of that. So, that's your teaching moment. Get hungry, get competitive. It's not easy this time of year, and we'll be fine. I believe that. But they were hungrier than us, more competitive than us in the first half of the game.“
As for the Minnesota Timberwolves, they looked to take a 2-0 lead in Game 2 of their first-round playoff series against the Los Angeles, but trailed 34-15 at the end of the first quarter Tuesday night inside Crypto.com Arena.
Luka Doncic had 31 points, 12 rebounds, and nine assists in their 94-85 win over the Timberwolves. Julius Randle scored 27 and Anthony Eddwards had 25 in the loss.
“The way that they’re guarding us, when I catch the ball, they kind of go zone, and when I try to attack a gap, it’s like three people,” Edwards said. “I've just got to make my decisions a little quicker, and we’ll be all right.”
LeBron James score 21 points and grabbed 11 rebounds.
“We looked at what we didn’t do so well, which is a lot of things in Game 1,” James said. “We took it to heart, held each other accountable and had a much better result.”
Game 3 is Friday night at Target Center in Minneapolis.