Minnesota Wild Hold On to Win 3-1 Over San Jose Sharks

The Minnesota Wild and San Jose Sharks faced off on Saturday night, Jan. 11, in San Jose, California. The Wild’s injury list was the same as the past week, as they remained without Jonas Brodin, Jakub Lauko, Kirill Kaprizov, Brock Faber, and Jared Spurgeon. The Sharks were missing Vitek Vanacek, Alex Wennberg, and Nikolai Kovalenko.

The goaltending battle was between Marc-André Fleury and Yaroslav Askarov for the Sharks. The game was not easy for either side, and the Wild were lucky to come out ahead. They started the scoring and held on throughout the game to take the 3-1 win. The Wild moved to a record of 27-12-4, and the Sharks moved to 13-25-6.

Game Recap

The Wild got things started just under six minutes into the game with a goal by Marco Rossi, and the assists went to Mats Zuccarello and Matt Boldy to put them up 1-0. Despite some chances for both sides, that was the only goal of the first period, as both goaltenders stopped everything that came at them. 

In the second, the Wild scored early once again on a goal by Boldy for his second point of the night, and the lone assist went to Zuccarello also for his second point to put their team up 2-0. The Sharks answered back late in the period, hoping to swing the momentum in their favor with a goal by William Eklund, who knocked in a Macklin Celebrini rebound, and Jake Walman also assisted him. That made it 2-1, and that’s how the period ended.

The only scoring in the third period came at the hands of the Wild as Zuccarello joined his linemates with a goal of his own into an empty net. The goaltender had just left the net, and Zuccarello sent it down the ice to make it 3-1 with just over a minute left in the game. 

The Wild won’t have much time to think about this game as they’ll head back on the road for the second game of their back-to-back against the Vegas Golden Knights on Sunday, Jan. 12. The Sharks will head on the road to face the Detroit Red Wings on Tuesday, Jan. 14.