Minnesota Wild’s Offense on Fire in Preseason Win Over Jets – The Hockey Writers – Minnesota Wild

The Minnesota Wild hosted the Winnipeg Jets for their third preseason game and first at home. While they didn’t field their full NHL roster yet, they included some big names for their hometown fans. Kirill Kaprizov, Ryan Hartman, Mats Zuccarello, Joel Eriksson Ek, Yakov Trenin, Brock Faber, Jake Middleton, and Marc-André Fleury made preseason debuts for the Wild.

Things started off strong for the Wild, as their star, Kaprizov, scored on the power play to give them an early lead. The Jets would answer back, however, also on the power play to tie things up before the first ended in a 1-1 tie. In the second period, the scoring took off for the Wild, as they scored seven goals to the Jets’ one and came out on top 8-2 to end the second. In the third, the Wild finally calmed down on the scoring, but the Jets climbed back. Ultimately, the Wild were able to keep them at bay, and they walked away with an 8-5 win. In this article, we’ll take a look at how the Wild did it, starting with their offensive production.

Wild’s Offense Producing

The Wild’s scoring leader, Kaprizov, did what he does best and scored not once but twice on the power play. His performance was equaled by Joel Eriksson Ek, who also scored twice. The only difference was that Eriksson Ek’s were at even strength, plus he had three assists for a five-point night. Mats Zuccarello and Liam Ohgren also added single goals of their own to keep their team’s strong offensive production going, as did Ben Jones, who added the first of two shorthanded goals. 

While all of these goals were equally impressive, Marat Khusnutdinov stands out the most as not only was his the second shorthanded goal of the game but his pure effort to follow through. He got the puck on a breakaway, but the Jets defenseman caught up to him, and in the defenseman’s efforts to stop Khusnutdinov, he got a penalty. However, Khusnutdinov didn’t stop and continued to the net, where he beat Connor Hellebuyck and put the Wild up 8-2. 

There was plenty of scoring for the Wild, but they wouldn’t have been able to put up all those goals without the strong performance of their netminder, Fleury. He struggled a little in the game’s final minutes but still made some great saves and helped his team earn the 8-5 win. 

Wild’s Special Teams Improved

The Wild have put the lessons they’ve learned in…