30 December 2023
Round 1 in back-to-back games between two of the NHL’s hottest teams went to Winnipeg on Saturday.
Former Wild forward Nino Niederreiter scored two goals to help give the Jets a 3-0 lead, and Connor Hellebuyk finished with 35 saves as Winnipeg beat Minnesota, 4-2, at Canada Life Centre.
Ryan Hartman and Matt Boldy scored unanswered goals to pull the Wild within a goal early in the third period, but Marc-Andre Fleury — who replaced Filip Gustavsson after two periods — surrendered a goal to Axel Jonsson-Fjallby just two minutes later to quickly tip momentum back the Jets’ way.
The loss snapped Minnesota’s four-game winning streak and dropped them to 10 points behind Winnipeg, tied with Dallas for fourth in the Central Division. Hartman has scored a goal in his past four games, and team captain Jared Spurgeon returned from a seven-game injury absence.
Fleury, making his 999th NHL appearance, stopped 9 of 10 shots in the third and if Wild coach John Hynes sticks with his schedule, will become just the third NHL goalie to play in 1,000 games on Sunday when the teams meet for a 1 p.m. puck drop at Xcel Energy Center.
“It’s always interesting playing teams back to back, it’s a little bit more competitive, a little more juice,” Boldy told Bally Sports North. “We’ll come back tomorrow and try to get a win.”
It wasn’t immediately clear if Gustavsson had been injured. He stopped 19 of 22 shots.
Winnipeg dominated the first period, and Alex Iafallo started the scoring early when he beat Gustavsson 3 minutes, 59 seconds into the game. Niederreiter made it 2-0 with 5:12 left in the period, then built the lead to 3-0 with just under 7 minutes off the clock in the second.
“I think we were just slow to get to our game,” Boldy said.
Hartman pulled the Wild back within two goals when he one-timed a pass from Marcus Johansson past Hellebuyk with 7 seconds left on a power play midway through the second period, and Boldy shoveled a no-look pass from Kirill Kaprizov in just 20 seconds into the third period to make it 3-2.
But after the Jets lost possession on an aborted rush, the Wild couldn’t get the puck out of their own, losing it behind the net, and Dominic Toninato found Jonsson-Fjallby open in the right circle, and he beat Fleury far side to push the lead back to two goals at 2:46.
The Wild pulled Fleury with more than 2 minutes left, and had a 6 on 4 advantage for the last 1:32 after a tripping penalty on Gabriel Vilardi, but they couldn’t solve Hellebuyk.
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