TEMPE, Ariz. — In a game in which goals were hard to come by for 40 minutes, the Minnesota Wild and Arizona Coyotes combined for three in a 39-second span early in the third period Thursday, and Joel Eriksson Ek broke a 2-2 tie 7:16 into the period with his 29th goal of the season to help lift Minnesota to a 5-2 win at Mullett Arena.
Mats Zuccarello, who missed Sunday’s game because of a family emergency, returned to the lineup and assisted on three of the five goals.
Brock Faber scored an empty-net goal and had an assist, Connor Dewar added an empty-net goal, Kirill Kaprizov continued his scoring ways with a second-period power-play goal and Zach Bogosian, fresh off signing a two-year, $2.5 million extension, scored a clutch third-period tying goal as the Wild won their second straight. The Coyotes, playing without Jason Zucker and Matt Dumba for trade-related reasons and Nick Bjugstad with his wife in labor, fell to 2-14-2 since Jan. 24.
- Kaprizov scored his fourth goal in two games and joined Marian Gaborik (2005 to ’08) and Brian Rolston (2005 to ’08) as the only Wild players to notch three consecutive 30-goal seasons.
- Clayton Keller and Michael Carcone scored seven seconds apart to ruin Fleury’s shutout early in the third period. It was the fastest two goals the…
