Utah Hockey Club Wins 2-1 Over Wild

The Minnesota Wild and Utah Hockey Club faced off for the second time in the last 10 days on Friday night, Dec. 20. The first was in Salt Lake City, Utah, where the Wild came out with the 5-4 shootout win, and now it was in St. Paul, MN. The Wild were still without Joel Eriksson Ek, Yakov Trenin, Jakub Lauko, Filip Gustavsson, and Jake Middleton, while Utah wasn’t missing anyone. 

Related: Wild Need to Play “Full Team Game” to Get Through Injuries

The goaltender matchup was between Marc-André Fleury for the Wild and Karel Vejmelka for Utah. The game started with the Wild finding the back of the net first, but Utah answered back, and it was a tight affair all night. Utah HC won 2-1, and the Wild moved to 20-9-4 while Utah moved to 16-11-5.

Game Recap

The Wild’s top line of Kirill Kaprizov, Marco Rossi, and Mats Zuccarello got things started for the Wild with a picture-perfect passing play, with the end result being a goal. It was near the halfway point of the period, and the Wild got the 1-0 lead, but Utah found a way to respond a minute later. They skated right into the Wild’s defensive zone and bounced a puck off Dylan Guenther’s skate to tie things up at one, and that’s how the first period would end. 

Despite some strong chances for both sides there were no goals scored in the second. The lone exception was when Utah thought they scored a goal, but it was overturned due to goaltender interference as the Utah forward appeared to push Fleury’s leg pad with his stick and affected how Fleury could make the save, so the period ended 1-1. The same way it started. 

In the third period, Utah found a way past Fleury to take a 2-1 lead. Guenther scored his second of the game and was assisted by Mikhail Sergachev and Clayton Keller. Despite some close calls at the end, that is how the game would stay, and Utah would take the win. 

The Wild won’t have any time to think about this loss as they’ll turn around and head up north to face the Winnipeg Jets in the second game of this back-to-back on Saturday, Dec. 21. Utah will head back home, where they will host the Anaheim Ducks on Sunday, Dec. 22.