St. Paul, MN (SportsNetwork.com) – Jason Zucker netted two goals and the
Minnesota Wild cruised past the Tampa Bay Lightning, 7-2, on Saturday.
The Wild scored four times on eight shots in the first period and had six
different players — Zucker, Zach Parise, Marco Scandella, Mikko Koivu, Erik
Haula and Jared Spurgeon — light the lamp.
Darcy Kuemper, fresh off his third shutout of the season in Thursday’s win
over Arizona, only needed to make 17 saves in the blowout victory.
Nikita Kucherov and Anton Stralman each scored goals for the Lighting, who
finished up a five-game road trip with a 3-2-0 record.
Evgeni Nabokov was the victim of Minnesota’s fast start, while Ben Bishop made
11 saves in a relief role.
Scandella and Koivu each scored sharp-angle goals less than a minute apart
early on, and after Stralman lit the lamp, Haula made it 3-1 with a goal into
the upper right corner.
Nabokov was caught flat-footed on Zucker’s turnaround wrister with 2:45
remaining in the first period, and his night was over the moment the puck hit
the back of the net.
Parise knocked in his own rebound 2:11 into the second stanza, and it was 6-1
nine minutes later after Thomas Vanek found Spurgeon for an easy tap-in.
Kucherov scored on a deflection with 3:10 remaining in middle period, and
Zucker’s second of the night capped the rout at the 13:44 mark of the third.
Game Notes
Minnesota defensemen Keith Ballard and Christian Folin both sat out due to
illness … Tampa Bay has dropped three straight and seven of its last nine in
Minnesota … Vanek and Jason Pominville each recorded two assists for the
Wild.
