Ducks struggle on offense and fall to Wild for their fourth consecutive loss
ST. PAUL, Minn. — Marc-Andre Fleury made 16 saves in his 75th career shutout, and the Minnesota Wild beat the Ducks 2-0 on Thursday night.
Fleury is 11th on the NHL shutouts list, one behind Ed Belfour and Tony Esposito. The 39-year-old goaltender got plenty of help from his teammates, who were credited with 16 blocked shots.
“I didn’t do much back there. The guys were awesome,” said Fleury, who was making his fourth straight star. “Lot of blocked shots. D in front boxing out, taking rebounds. I thought we played solid. We didn’t give them much.”
Kirill Kaprizov and Zach Bogosian scored for the Wild, who improved to 5-0-1 in their last six games. Minnesota entered the night six points behind Vegas for the final wild card in the Western Conference.
Connor Bedard had a goal and four assists to set his single-game high in points as the Chicago Blackhawks beat the Ducks.
Lukas Dostal stopped 29 shots for the Ducks, who have dropped four in a row.
Minnesota jumped in front when Bogosian rifled a slap shot through traffic 14:44 into the first period. The defenseman one-timed a pass off the side wall from the left point and beat a screened Dostal for his third goal of the season.
Two minutes into the second, Fleury stopped a breakaway by Brett Leason, and the Wild countered with their own rush the other way. Kaprizov got his 34th goal of the season on a tap-in at the goalmouth off a pass from Ryan Hartman.
“He’s really playing at a high, high level right now,” Minnesota coach John Hynes said of Kaprizov. “What amazes me with him right now is he can play high minutes. You can use him in extra shifts in certain situations and his game doesn’t drop off.”
Kaprizov skated for almost 21½ minutes, tops for all forwards on the night. He extended his point streak to six games with his eighth goal in that stretch.
“It’s easy when you start scoring more goals,” Kaprizov said. “It’s feeling better and you feel better on the ice and locker room, everything.”
The Ducks appeared to cut it to 2-1 early in the third when Pavol Regenda hammered the puck past Fleury in the crease. But Minnesota challenged the play, and the goal was nullified because of a Ducks player being offside in the buildup.
“That was a bummer,” Ducks coach Greg Cronin said. “I think we played well, but we just weren’t good enough tonight. They blocked a lot of shots. They packed the inside third of the ice, and we couldn’t get them through. They were blocking them out at the blue line, they were blocking at the net, and they did a really good job keeping us to the outside.”
Up next for the Ducks: at Winnipeg on Friday.
