The Wild won for the fifth time in six games and third in a row on the road tonight with a 4-0 victory over the Nashville Predators.
Real good game for the Wild, which limited the Predators to very few legit scoring chances and helped Darcy Kuemper to his first career shutout. Kuemper made 23 saves for his third career win, and he had to be particularly good in the second.
The Wild clamped down defensively, but it did spend some extended shifts in its own end and went the final 13:44 of the period without a shot. But even then, the Wild had a 2-0 lead thanks to goals by Dany Heatley and Jason Zucker and it always felt like the Wild had the game in pretty good control. Still, Kuemper was good controlling rebounds and was real good playing the puck and helping out his defensemen.
Good bounceback win for the Wild, which felt it deserved better than zero points in allowed 18 shots during a 4-2 loss less than 24 hours earlier to Colorado.
The Heatley-Charlie Coyle-Zucker line was great again, with Coyle assisting on both goals by his linemates. He had a funny anecdote about Heatley in the gamer, so read that at www.startribune.com/wild.
"Those three guys, the last two games have been by far their best without the puck," coach Mike Yeo said.
All the goals by them have come off rushes and Yeo noted it could not happen if not for being good defensively, quick to transition and spending less time in the defensive zone.
Ryan Suter, the ex-Pred, was an absolute stud tonight. He had one assist in 28:42 of ice time and was plus-2 and just was so strong in his own end and started the transition of both goals by Heatley and Zucker. Before the Heatley winning goal, he forced the turnover and led the rush. Before the Zucker goal, he was a defensive-zone battle before going for a line change.
