Filip Gustavsson made 29 saves and Michael McCarron had a goal and an assist in his Minnesota debut as the Wild beat the Vegas Golden Knights 4-2 on Friday in Las Vegas.
Mats Zuccarello, Zach Bogosian and Vladimir Tarasenko also scored goals for Minnesota, which completed a three-game sweep of the regular-season series with the Golden Knights.
It was the second straight win overall and eighth in the past 10 games for the Wild.
Pavel Dorofeyev scored his 30th goal, the first player in Vegas history to have back-to-back 30-goal seasons, and also had an assist, and Mitch Marner also tallied for Vegas.
Akira Schmid finished with 20 saves for the Golden Knights, who fell out of first place in the Pacific Division. The Anaheim Ducks, a 6-5 shootout winner over the Montreal Canadiens, snagged the top spot in the division.
Minnesota took a 1-0 lead at the 5:18 mark of the second period on a breakaway goal by Zuccarello. He intercepted a drop pass by Noah Hanifin near the blue line and then sprinted up ice and roofed a wrist shot past Schmid’s glove side.
The Wild extended the lead to 3-0 midway through the period with two goals in an 18-second span.
Bogosian got the first when he blasted a slap shot from the top of the right circle past Schmid’s blocker side at 8:07. McCarron, obtained in a trade with the Nashville Predators on Tuesday, then redirected Brock Faber’s shot from the right point into the upper left corner of the net. It marked the fourth time in five games that the Golden Knights fell behind 3-0 in a contest.
Vegas, coming in off its league-leading 10th third-period-comeback win on Wednesday at Detroit, cut it to 3-1 at the 2:17 mark of the third period on a power play goal by Dorofeyev. He roofed a wrist shot from the right doorstep off a Jack Eichel pass.
Tarasenko restored the Wild’s three-goal lead with 4:18 remaining when he finished an odd-man rush with a wrist shot from the left circle that beat Schmid five-hole.
Marner made it 4-2 with 3:05 left when he redirected a Dorofeyev pass to the low slot.
–Field Level Media
