Kirill Kaprizov had two goals and an assist in the Minnesota Wild’s 5-2 road win over the Anaheim Ducks on Friday.
The Wild are 7-1-1 on the road this season, with a league-leading 15 away points.
Kaprizov leads the NHL with 27 points (nine goals, 18 assists). The star forward has three points in each of his last two games and has six three-point performances in 14 games this season.
Marco Rossi had a goal and an assist and Brock Faber had two assists. Jake Middleton and Marcus Foligno also scored for the Wild, who are on a two-game winning streak.
Filip Gustavsson stopped 33 of 35 shots to earn his seventh win in 10 starts.
Robby Fabbri and Mason McTavish scored for the Ducks, who are 0-3-1 in their last four games.
Lukas Dostal stopped 26 of 31 shots.
Anaheim is last in the NHL with 27 goals, and near the bottom of the league in power-play percentage. Though the Wild have one of the league’s worst penalty-kill units, the Ducks were 0-for-6 on the power play on Friday.
Middleton, Foligno, and Kaprizov established Minnesota’s lead by scoring three goals within a 5:01 span during the first period.
Trevor Zegras was hooked during a breakaway early in the second period, setting up a penalty shot for the Anaheim forward. Zegras took a slow approach towards Gustavsson that didn’t pay off, as his shot went off-target.
The missed penalty shot symbolized the Ducks’ offensive frustrations. Anaheim outshot Minnesota 35-31 but were hampered by missed shots, an ineffective power play, and solid work by Gustavsson and the Minnesota defenders.
Fabbri finally put Anaheim on the board 2:16 into the third period. McTavish scored the Ducks’ other goal with 13 seconds remaining in regulation.
In between Anaheim’s two tallies, Kaprizov’s pass from behind the net found Rossi for the score at 14:20 of the third period. Kaprizov then added a power-play goal for his third point at the 17:44 mark.
Friday’s win continued Minnesota’s lopsided rivalry with Anaheim. The Wild are 16-1-0 in their last 17 games with the Ducks, dating back to the 2020-21 season.
–Field Level Media