Kirill Kaprizov tallied his seventh career hat trick and added an assist, and the Minnesota Wild pulled away for a 4-1 win over the Florida Panthers on Saturday evening in Sunrise, Fla.
Matt Boldy finished with a goal and an assist for Minnesota, which snapped a two-game winless skid. Quinn Hughes was one of four other Wild players to tally an assist.
Matthew Tkachuk scored the lone goal for Florida. The outcome marked the Panthers’ first loss in regulation in five games this season.
Wild goaltender Jesper Wallstedt stopped 29 of 30 shots to earn the victory.
Panthers goaltender Jacob Markstrom allowed three goals on 28 shots.
Minnesota jumped out to a 1-0 lead in the first minute of the game. Boldy carried the puck into the offensive zone and fired a wrist shot above Markstrom’s left shoulder 53 seconds in.
The Wild increased their lead to 2-0 with a power-play goal at 6:18 of the first period. Maxim Shabanov fed a cross-ice pass to Kaprizov, who buried a one-timer from the right circle.
Florida cut the deficit to 2-1 at 2:18 of the second period. Tkachuk kept the puck on a two-on-one rush but his shot was kicked out by Wallstedt. Tkachuk followed the rebound and scored on his second chance from near the front of the crease.
Kaprizov struck again to boost the Wild’s lead to 3-1 at 5:00 of the second. He scored on a wrist shot from the right circle.
The Wild’s top scorer finished his hat trick with an empty-net goal at 18:56 of the third. Kaprizov got the puck in Minnesota’s defensive zone and flipped a long shot into the open net for his sixth goal in five games this season.
Wild forward Rieger Lorenz made his NHL debut. The 22-year-old Calgary native was Minnesota’s second-round pick (No. 56 overall) in the 2022 NHL Draft.
–Field Level Media
