Wild settle for ugly victory over Flames

Filip Gustavsson felt he had a “pretty easy night” protecting the Wild’s net … but not because he faced only eight shots through two periods.

That was the workload for his counterpart, Calgary’s Devin Cooley doing more puck watching than puck stopping for most of the game.

“Oh, that’s awful,” Gustavsson said. “It’s awful playing games like this because even though we had very low shots, some of the chances were pretty good. So, those nights it’s hard to be a goalie.”

But what’s bad for the opposing goaltender isn’t good for the Wild.

Their patchy pressure was the result of poor and perimeter puck play. But two depth goals, Gustavsson’s near-perfect performance and contributions from the penalty kill and power play bailed the Wild out; surprisingly, they didn’t need overtime or a shootout after three straight extra-time finishes, eking by the Flames 4-1 on Thursday, Jan. 29, at Grand Casino Arena for only their second regulation win in the last 13 games.

“When you go through 82 games, they’re not all gonna be Picassos, right?” coach John Hynes said. “But good teams find ways to win, even when you’re not at your best.”

The Wild’s 55th game might not have been frame worthy, let alone ready for an art gallery, but their efficiency was spot on.

“That was a great play,” Middleton said. “He read it well, catching it, shot in stride. Impressive.”

The goal was the first in 25 games for Hinostroza, who played baseball growing up; he was an outfielder.

“Obviously, I’ve been playing for a long time, and you try to stay positive,” Hinostroza said. “But it would be crazy to say you don’t get in your head a little bit. Obviously, I know what I can do. I know how I could help this team, and anytime you can chip in, it’s great.

“It has been a while, and hopefully this could start something and chip in a little more often because I have gotten chances, but I just haven’t been converting.”

Neither side converted in the second.

“A lot of shots just make you feel more comfortable out there,” said Gustavsson, who totaled 29 saves and has 14 victories over his past 20 starts. “It didn’t seem too bad.”

Finally, in the third, the Wild began to look like themselves.

The Flames capitalized to cut their deficit in half but after the Wild drew their first two power plays in the waning minutes, their stars took advantage of the concentrated zone time: Quinn Hughes handed off to Kirill Kaprizov, who found Matt Boldy for a redirect that gave the Wild back their two-goal cushion.

Hughes tied Paul Coffey and Sergei Zubov as the fastest defensemen in NHL history to record 25 assists with a franchise by reaching the mark in his 23rd Wild game; his seven-game assist streak tied the franchise record for a defenseman.

Kaprizov’s empty-netter inflated the score, a lopsided tally for a lopsided feel, but the outcome and the action weren’t identical matches.

This wasn’t the traditional method by any means, but neither was coming back from being down 3-0 to the Blackhawks two nights earlier en route to a 4-3 shootout victory.

But they both count the same in the standings.