Wild Mount Comeback to Shootout Win Over Utah – Hockey Writers – Minnesota Wild

The Minnesota Wild and Utah Hockey Club met for the first time this season on Tuesday, December 10, in Salt Lake City, Utah. The Wild brought back Jakub Lauko after missing the last six games with a lower-body injury. They were still without Mats Zuccarello, Joel Eriksson Ek, and Jonas Brodin. Utah was missing Connor Ingram, Maveric Lamoureux, and Sean Durzi. They added Robert Bortuzzo to that list, as he was injured during the game against the Wild.

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The goalie matchup was between Filip Gustavsson of the Wild and Karel Vejmelka of Utah. Both teams had plenty of penalty time, and it was a back-and-forth scoring game that needed a goal kick to finish. Matt Boldy scored one goal in the shootout to win 5-4. The Wild moved their record to 19-5-2, while Utah moved to 12-11-5.

Recap of the game

Utah Hockey Club dominated most of the first period, with the Wild getting chances here and there. Utah scored the game's first goal with a well-placed shot from Kevin Stenlend to take a 1-0 lead. The rest of the period was scoreless, so Utah took the lead into the second. They were leading 2-0 but they were called offside, and the goal was disallowed.

That's when the Wild found their game. Marat Khusnutdinov got a little break and made it count, as he snuck a single past Vejmelka to tie the game at 1-1. The Wild scoring continued. After 36 seconds, their leading scorer, Kirill Kaprizov, scored to give his team their first lead of the game late in the second. The Wild would take the lead even though Utah had strong chances.

The third period held a lot of scoring as Utah answered back with a power play goal by Clayton Keller to tie the game at two. However, the Wild responded just after a minute with a goal by Marcus Johansson, who scored a superb shot from the crease to make it 3-2. The scoring wasn't done there either, as Utah would score again on the power play with Keller's second goal of the game to tie the game 3-3.

Utah would take the scoring momentum as they scored a few minutes later to take a 4-3 lead on a goal by Juuso Välimäki. It looked like the Utah Hockey Club would win, but a wild Marco Rossi scored the equalizer as Marcus Foligno checked, and it would take overtime to decide the winner. However, they couldn't decide a winner there, so it would go to a shootout where Boldy hit the winner, and the Wild won 5-4.

The Wild will return home to face the Edmonton Oilers on Thursday, December 12, after being on the road for the past three games. Utah will hit the road for the next two games and face the Colorado Avalanche first, also on Thursday.