The Utah Hockey Club and the Minnesota Wild closed their season series on Thursday night. Utah won two of the first three matchups, but the Wild were looking to draw even in the series. The Wild won the game on their first trip to Salt Lake City, and the road team has won all three games in this season’s series.
Game Recap
Despite the road team dominating these matchups this season, Utah drew a power play in the game’s first five minutes. On the man advantage, Barrett Hayton drove the net and put the puck past Marc-Andre Fleury to open the scoring. This was Hayton’s fourth straight game with a goal, and he now has five in his last six games for Utah.
The rest of the period was uneventful until Nick Schmaltz drew two straight penalties with less than a minute left. The first was called on Jonas Brodin for hooking. Then, off the next faceoff, Schmaltz took an errant stick from Marcus Foligno, which drew blood. This resulted in a five-on-three powerplay for Utah, with the second penalty being a double minor.
This meant Utah would have a full two minutes on the two-man advantage. However, they only needed 16 seconds to extend the lead to two off a shot from Dylan Guenther. This goal nullified the two-man advantage, but given the four-minute penalty to Foligno, Utah would start the second period with more than two minutes remaining on the power play.
At the start of the second period, the Wild killed off the rest of Foligno’s double minor to get the game back to five-on-five. The following 10 minutes were uneventful, with both teams playing excellent defense at even strength. That is, until Fredrick Gaudreau got the Wild on the board with their first goal of the game. However, they would not be within one for long, as Sean Durzi extended Utah’s lead to 3-1 on his first goal of the season.
Utah took a 3-1 lead into the final frame. They extended the lead to three on a goal from Schmaltz, then started to run away with the game when Clayton Keller scored with 10 minutes remaining. Keller finished with a five-point night, four of which were primary points.
Logan Cooley added another with five minutes to play in the third to make the game 6-1, which ended up being the final score. With the win, Utah wrapped up a season-long series victory over the Wild, winning three of the four matchups. These two points keep Utah within four points of the second wild card playoff spot.
