Wild find a spark at Xcel Energy Center, ease their troubles by defeating Carolina

Bent down on one knee, his stick idling in his right hand, Wild goaltender Filip Gustavsson stayed frozen in his stance after the threat was over.

Even his face was still stuck in game mode, a look of exhaustion hanging on when a smile or sigh of relief could have segued into a celebration.

“I just had to catch my breath two seconds,” Gustavsson said.

Although he’d been fending off pucks all night amid a whopping 92 shot attempts, the pressure applied by the Hurricanes finally caught up to their output in the waning minutes — so much so that they spoiled Gustavsson’s shutout bid but not the victory.

His 37 saves — including a penalty shot from Eden Prairie’s Jackson Blake — led the Wild to a slump-busting 2-1 win Thursday at Xcel Energy Center that nixed their scoring drought, two-game losing streak and funk at home: This was their first triumph in five tries.

“Definitely it’s a different game without him,” alternate captain Marcus Foligno said. “He played amazing.”

Gustavsson was due, and so were the Wild.

He was in net vs. his former team last Saturday, his season-high 46 saves preventing the 6-0 drubbing by the Senators from getting more out of hand. Gustavsson then watched the Wild improve but still lose 3-0 to the Bruins on Tuesday, but everyone’s effort finally synced up with the outcome in the Wild’s return to St. Paul.

“It was kind of embarrassing, especially personal for me,” he said about the Ottawa game. “I want to go there and really show them that they made a bad trade, and we just didn’t show up at all. And then we bounced back in Boston, showed up, we just didn’t score any goals. Today … felt like we came back to how we normally play.”

Just 2 minutes, 55 seconds into the first period, Marat Khusnutdinov split the Carolina defense to get to a loose puck and send a no-look pass to Yakov Trenin, who deked to his backhand for the Wild’s first goal since their 4-0 victory at Montreal a week earlier that ended their goalless skid at 124:22.

“I didn’t see the puck. I thought I didn’t score,” Trenin said. “Then I see it. Phew.”

Trenin joining Khusnutdinov and Devin Shore on the fourth line was one of a handful of changes the Wild made: Declan Chisholm drew in on defense for Jon Merrill, Marco Rossi was back centering the top line, and Vinnie Hinostroza made his team debut after the Wild claimed him off waivers from the Predators on Wednesday.

With Ryan Hartman serving a 10-game suspension and Jakub Lauko out with a lower-body injury, the Wild were intrigued by the style of player and type of person Hinostroza is, coach John Hynes said.

Lauko, who underwent an MRI on Wednesday, barely got through the Boston game; his issue isn’t feared to be significant but is still enough of a problem that he was going to be questionable for the Wild’s final two games before the upcoming two-week break for the 4 Nations Face-Off.

Hinostroza, who led the American Hockey League in scoring before Nashville called him up in December, envisioned himself bringing energy, speed and offense to the Wild, and he previewed that skill set right away.

Only 49 seconds into the third period, he supplied a much-needed insurance goal when his deflection hit the post and then rolled into the net after Hurricanes goalie Frederik Anderson (22 saves) unsuccessfully covered the puck in the crease.

“I did my best today, and we got practice tomorrow,” Hinostroza said. “That’s [a chance] to make another impression and just keep building every day.”

In between those two goals and the rest of the way, Gustavsson was almost unbeatable en route to picking up his 63rd win with the Wild, fourth-most in team history.

He rattled off 15 saves in the first period, with Carolina very much looking like the team that averages the second-most shots in the league.

“You can never look at the shot clock against the Carolina Hurricanes,” Foligno said. “It’s always not gonna be in your favor.”

But the Wild were limiting the quality of those looks.

“After the first, it was a big shot advantage,” Hynes said. “But I think when you looked at the Grade-A’s, it wasn’t.”

BOXSCORE: Wild 2, Hurricanes 1

NHL standings

Then in the second after Brock Faber held Blake on a breakaway, Gustavsson denied Blake’s do-over on a penalty shot to go 3-for-3 in his career; Blake lost the handle, but Gustavsson’s right pad was in the right place to block the attempt. Carolina also went 0-for-2 on the power play and the Wild 0-for-3.

“It felt like he ran out of space a little bit,” Gustavsson said. “I don’t know if I covered where he was going to shoot or make his move or something because it felt like he dropped the puck a little bit at the end.”

Not until 2:48 remained and with an extra attacker on the ice did the Hurricanes connect on a spinning shot from the slot by Sebastian Aho.

But Gustavsson was airtight after that, making three more saves — the last off one-time 55-goal scorer Mikko Rantanen — to follow up his 21-save, 4-0 shutout at Carolina on Jan. 4 with another impressive performance.

“This was the Hurricanes we usually know,” said Gustavsson, who accurately guessed he’d faced almost 100 shots (90) over his past two games. “We played them earlier, and it just didn’t feel like them. Today they really showed up and gave us a really good game.”