The mountains that dominate the skyline of Salt Lake City were formed from constant and relentless pressure. So was the Utah Mammoth\u2019s 5-2 home win over the Minnesota Wild on Friday night at Delta Center.<\/p>\n
Playing the second night of back-to-back road games at high altitude, and coming off a hard-fought emotional win at Colorado, the Wild faced a young and relentless Mammoth team determined to wear them down.<\/p>\n
Kirill Kaprizov and Matt Boldy scored, and Jesper Wallstedt finished with 32 saves on a night where highlights were hard to come by for the visitors.<\/p>\n
\u201cI thought in the first period we had a good start and played the way we wanted to for, I\u2019d say, the first half. Then I thought we got away from it a little bit and we never got it back,\u201d Wild coach John Hynes said to reporters in Utah. \u201c\u2026 After about the first 12 minutes of the first (period), I just thought our puck play, we just fed their transition and their offense like that. I thought that was the biggest difference in the game.\u201d<\/p>\n
While Utah made rush after rush, and tested Wallstedt again and again, they also pounced on every one of Minnesota\u2019s mistakes, getting an early shorthanded goal and building a three-score lead before the game was half over.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey\u2019re a great hockey team,\u201d Wild defensemen Brock Faber said of the Mammoth, in the hunt to make their first playoff trip since relocating from Arizona two years ago. \u201cThey\u2019re really skilled. Obviously, we\u2019ve got to find a way to play them better. Tonight we didn\u2019t have our best, and you can talk about the back-to-back all you want, but we just weren\u2019t good enough.\u201d<\/p>\n
It could have been worse.<\/p>\n
After a fruitless second-period rush into the offensive zone by the Wild, the Mammoth transitioned quickly, and on an odd-man rush slipped a puck past Wallstedt that looked to make it a 4-0 lead. But for the fifth time this season, the Wild successfully challenged the play for offside and the point came off the scoreboard.<\/p>\n
Minutes later, with the Wild on a power play, Kaprizov scored on a tap-in at the side of the crease after a cross-ice feed from Matt Boldy. It was the 218th career goal for Kaprizov, leaving him one short of tying Marian Gaborik\u2019s franchise record.<\/p>\n
When Joel Eriksson Ek took a high stick to the face and left the game, the ensuing Wild power play provided a window to make it a one-goal game. But the Mammoth penalty kill held firm, and then the Wild took a penalty of their own late in the middle frame, switching the momentum back to the home team.<\/p>\n
Eriksson Ek did not return, and Hynes did not have a postgame update on the second line center\u2019s health.<\/p>\n
Utah scored early in the third on the man advantage, capitalizing on a scramble in front of the net where Wallstedt had lost his stick, making it 4-1 for the Mammoth.<\/p>\n
Minnesota didn\u2019t lack opportunities to get back into the game, with Boldy springing for a pair of shorthanded breakaway. Both were thwarted by Karel Vejmelka. The Mammoth goalie finished with 21 saves as Utah improved to 2-0 versus the Wild this season.<\/p>\n
\u201cNot our best, obviously. I think these guys have kind of been our Kryptonite the last couple years,\u201d Wild forward Mats Zuccarello said. \u201cThey play real good against us, and it\u2019s a tough team to play against. \u2026 We don\u2019t play our best, but they prevent us from playing our best, too. So, you\u2019ve got to give them credit.\u201d<\/p>\n
After the Mammoth opened up a 5-1 lead, Boldy scored for the third time in the past two games to pull Minnesota back within three. It was Boldy\u2019s team-leading 35th goal of the season.<\/p>\n
By missing the score sheet on Friday, defenseman Quinn Hughes\u2019 franchise-record assist streak was halted at 11 games. Minnesota returns home to open March with a 4 p.m. Sunday afternoon game versus St. Louis at Grand Casino Arena.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The mountains that dominate the skyline of Salt Lake City were formed from constant and relentless pressure. So…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":476506,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[5118],"tags":[5,537,161,38,5280,4,43,162],"class_list":{"0":"post-476505","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-minnesota-wild","8":"tag-hockey","9":"tag-kirill-kaprizov","10":"tag-minnesota","11":"tag-minnesota-wild","12":"tag-minnesotawild","13":"tag-nhl","14":"tag-sports","15":"tag-wild"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nhl\/116146604858210228","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/476505","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=476505"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/476505\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/476506"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=476505"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=476505"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=476505"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}