Minnesota Wild dominates New York Rangers at its home to win by 3-1 – NHL Updates
Jose Theodore showed why he is one of the best goalies in the league by making a couple of unearthly saves that helped Minnesota take down New York Rangers by 3-1 at the sold out Madison Square Garden in New York, New York.
Adding to Rangers third straight loss on home turf, Casey Wellman, who was called prior to the match from the minor league in case Cal Cutterbuck wasn’t fit to play, scored his second NHL goal which was the tie breaker, making it a lot easier for Minnesota
Wild to function in full capacity.
"We come back to New York and we lose all three at home", Rangers’ goalie, Henrik Lundqvist, said. "It's really tough mentally."
It was a win that Minnesota really needed as it is currently tied with LA and Dallas for 7th place in the tight Western Conference, earlier not even being in the top eight.
If they had lost to Rangers, it would have been their third straight loss, the second being to Rangers’ younger brother, New York Islanders.
New York was able to dominate in the first interval of the match, with Sean Avery scoring his first in 23 games, giving them an early lead 3 minutes in.
NY played strong, giving Wild only three attempts in the first, but Theodore who made 40 saves, rejected each Rangers’ shot coming his way.
"Obviously the star of the game was Theo. The game belonged to Theo", said Wild’s coach, Todd Richards, who was all praises for Theodore.
Richards was also noticed guiding the team and telling them to loosen up and relax and forget about the previous losses to just concentrate on this match.
Minnesota fired up its engines in the next 40 minutes, tying the match within the opening 5 minutes as Kyle Brodziak took advantage of the power-play when Erik Christensen was sent out.
Wellman, who turned out to be a good call, redirected a shot from Brent Burns exactly 8 minutes later to take the lead to 2-1 at the end of the first 40 minutes.
"I was pretty pumped", Wellman said. "It's something I've been dreaming about since the last one I had".
Entering the final period, it was anyone’s game, but having an extra goal at anytime gives you that much needed confidence to fight of the high-pressure games such as this one.
Theodore deflected 16 shots on goal, double that of his own team, killing every penalty moment and shutting Rangers out in the final period, while Pierre-Marc Bouchard scored his eighth goal of the season nearly midway through, securing the match for Minnesota
Wild.
NY has fallen recently due to continuous losses, causing them to jump near the edge at 8th place in the Eastern Conference.
It can hope for a victory when facing Ottawa Senators next, but it would enter the big boy’s league after that as it will go on to host Philadelphia on Sunday.
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