Toonstruck 1 » As Minnesota recovered

ST. PAUL Milan Lucic Jersey Kids , Minn. (AP)from an early deficit against the San Jose Sharks, Wild coach Bruce Boudreau turned to assistant Bob Woods and told him to keep sending defenseman Jared Spurgeon out on the ice as much as possible.Spurgeon then helped the Wild to an important two points.Spurgeon scored with 12 seconds left in overtime to give the Minnesota a 3-2 victory Sunday night.”I said, `Play Spurge a lot. He looks like he’s got it,”’ Boudreau said. ”He had his mojo today.”Spurgeon added an assist. Jason Zucker had two assists, setting up Spurgeon in the extra session as the Wild tied a season-high with their fourth straight victory.Matt Cullen and Eric Staal also scored for Minnesota, which has points in 15 of its last 16 home games (11-1-4). Devan Dubnyk made 26 saves for the Wild.Joakim Ryan and Chris Tierney scored for the Sharks, who built a two-goal lead and were 23-0-1 when leading after two periods. Martin Jones stopped 38 shots for San Jose, which lost the final three games of a four-game trip.”Tonight’s disappointing,” Sharks forward Logan Couture said. ”You’re up 2-1 late in the game. We’ve got to find a way to shut it down. You’ve got less than 30 seconds left in overtime and we’ve got a pretty good team here in the shootout. You just can’t turn that over.”Spurgeon managed to collect the puck in the offensive zone after knocking down Brent Burns‘ clearing attempt. Spurgeon sent a cross-ice pass to an uncovered Zucker. Instead of shooting on Jones, who slid across the crease, Zucker passed back to Spurgeon for a wide-open goal.”I had all day and all net shoot at, so I was just trying to put it in the middle of the net,” Spurgeon said.Off their back-to-back losses in Nashville and Chicago in which it was outscored 10-2, San Jose outshot Minnesota 17-10 in the first period.Ryan scored his third career goal 14 minutes into the first when he snapped a quick shot past Dubnyk on a cross-ice feed from Jannik Hansen. Tierney extended his career-best with his 15th goal 2:28 into the second before the Wild.”We’re a good team when we get the lead usually, and it makes us easy for us to play our system when we’re not trailing, so that was big to get the lead,” Tierney said. ”I thought we had a good first period Oscar Klefbom Jersey , created a lot of chances, probably would have been nice to get another one in the first there.Cullen countered with 43.4 seconds left in the period, tipping home a pass from Spurgeon.Staal tied the game with 4:44 left on a wraparound that deflected off of Jones. Staal has eight goals and five assists in his past 10 games and reached the 30-goal mark for the sixth time in his career.”He had a nice thing going there and it was nice to get that one, for sure, that first one to kind of crack it,” Cullen said of Jones. ”It’s good to see the way that we just kept coming. I was really pleased with our last two periods the way we just kept coming and played some really good hockey.”NOTES: Minnesota placed veteran F Chris Stewart on waivers on Sunday. Stewart had been scratched in 10 of the past 15 games. He has nine goals and four assists in 47 games this season. … San Jose D Justin Braun was scratched after missing the morning skate with the flu. It’s the first game Braun has missed this season. … Wild D Jonas Brodin practiced on Sunday for the first time since injuring his hand on Feb. 6. . The Sharks were 0 for 1 on the power play and are 0 for 20 in their past nine games. … Minnesota is 11-6-2 in the past 19 games against San Jose, including five straight wins.UP NEXTSharks: Host Edmonton on Tuesday night.Wild: Host St. Louis on Tuesday night.— ST. PAUL, Minn. (AP) — After a Stanley Cup Final appearance two years ago and the NHL’s best regular-season record in 2017-18, the Nashville Predators haven’t enjoyed the same vibe.There’s still plenty of time to get it back, though, and this victory at Minnesota was an encouraging sign.Ryan Johansen scored in the fourth round of the shootout on Sunday night to give the Predators a 3-2 victory and stop the Wild’s winning streak at five games.“A step in the right direction,” Johansen said. “Some more adversity today on the road and just finding a way to win. We’re going to build off that.”Filip Forsberg had the tying goal with 4:19 remaining in regulation and backup goalie Juuse Saros won for the first time in four starts for the Predators, who owned a 17-3 shots advantage after the second intermission against a Wild team returned from a 4-2 win at Pacific Division leader Calgary on Saturday night.Eric Fehr and Jason Zucker scored late in the second period less than 3 minutes apart for the Wild, who still moved into a tie with Dallas for the first wild-card spot in the Western Conference. The Stars have played one fewer game.“We all expected to win that game no matter what the travel is, especially if we played our game,” Zucker said. “I thought we played pretty well.”Six days after he was traded to the Predators for fellow wing Kevin Fiala, Mikael Granlund faced off against his former team and was honored during a first-period break with a tribute video and an extended cheer from the crowd.There could hardly have been a player on the ice with more emotion for this game than Granlund http://www.officialoilers.com/authentic-adidas-ryan-nugent-hopkins-jersey , the slick stick-handler and special-teams standout who was informed of the deal by Wild general manager Paul Fenton after his fiancée had started labor. Granlund turned 27 and became a father the following day. He debuted with his new team with one assist at Winnipeg on Friday.Granlund, who skated with Kyle Turris and Craig Smith on the second line, was acquired in part to help jump-start a power play that entered the evening with the second-worst conversion rate (12.5 percent) in the NHL. The Predators went 0 for 2.“It’s been fun to play games,” Granlund said. “Hopefully I’m going to find my rhythm and systems and everything so I don’t need to go out there and think.”With first-liners Forsberg and Viktor Arvidsson, Turris and star defenseman P.K. Subban all having missed significant time earlier in the season, the Predators, who are just 5-6-1 in their last 12 games, have had to work a lot harder to stay among the Western Conference leaders than in the last two seasons. They trail Winnipeg by one point in the Central Division, but they’ve played three more games than the Jets.“We need to start pushing our collection,” Predators coach Peter Laviolette said. “I really liked the resiliency of our group.”Wayne Simmonds posted his first point for the Predators since he was acquired in a trade hours after Granlund, setting up Nick Bonino’s first goal in 16 games since Jan. 23. The Wild picked up the pace, and Fehr scored on a breakaway with 3:25 remaining before the second intermission after blocking Rocco Grimaldi’s shot. Zucker, with 38 seconds left, deposited his third goal in the last four games .Backup goalie Alex Stalock made 41 saves, after allowing 11 goals on 69 shots over his three previous starts, all losses. That included an early hook against Anaheim on Jan. 17, when he gave up three goals in 7:58.In the shootout Ryan Strome Jersey , Johansen slowed to a near-stop in front of the crease and used a rope-a-dope move to set up a backhander. Stalock unsuccessfully argued that Johansen pushed his pad into the net with the puck.“They don’t want to be thought of as the team that didn’t make it,” Wild coach Bruce Boudreau said. “They’re giving it everything that they have.”NOTES: Recently retired skier Lindsey Vonn , the all-time women’s leader with 82 World Cup wins who grew up in Minnesota, performed a ceremonial puck drop . Grinning widely as she walked off the ice, Vonn playfully waved her arms at Nashville’s bench where her boyfriend, Subban, was sitting. … Zach Parise, who had the only shootout goal for the Wild, returned from a one-game absence to a lower-body injury as Matt Read, who scored against the Flames, was sent back to the AHL. … Smith returned from a six-game absence due to a lower-body injury. Bonino moved over to center to fill the spot vacated by Brian Boyle, who was out with a lower-body injury. … Eric Staal stretched his season-high points streak to six straight games. … Fiala is the fourth former Predators player acquired for the Wild by Fenton since the season began, joining right wing Pontus Aberg and defensemen Anthony Bitetto and Brad Hunt.UP NEXTPredators: After returning home to face the Wild again on Tuesday, they host Carolina on Saturday.Wild: After the rematch with the Predators in two nights, they stay on the road and play at Tampa Bay on Thursday.