Rough second period proves costly for Wild in Vancouver

Jesper Wallstedt is human That was the hard lesson Minnesota Wild fans learned late Saturday night as the red-hot rookie goalie cooled off just a bit and suffered his first regulation loss of the season Victimized for a trio of goals in the second period Wallstedt and the Wild fell - in their lone visit to Vancouver this season dropping their second consecutive encounter Matt Boldy and Mats Zuccarello scored for the Wild who dominated early but failed to build on their first period lead Wallstedt now - - as a starter had saves in the loss Aatu Raty had a pair of goals and another disallowed for Vancouver which had been winless in its previous four games Just seconds into the encounter Wallstedt detected himself under pressure thwarting a Vancouver scoring chance but upending a Canucks competitor in the process Wallstedt was whistled for tripping on the play which was the second penalty of his NHL career The Wild s penalty killers who have been on a hot streak lately negated the Canucks advantage then Minnesota took the lead shortly after getting back to -on- Zuccarello who had served the Wallstedt penalty grabbed the puck at center ice kicking off a -on- rush to the net His cross-ice pass set up Boldy s th goal of the season Zuccarello s assist on the play was the nd he has recorded in a Wild uniform moving him into fourth place in franchise history one better than Pierre-Marc Bouchard in the organization s record book He nearly had another first period assist with a long lead pass that caught Kirill Kaprizov behind the Vancouver defense but his breakaway attempt was stopped After the Wild spent the first six minutes of the middle frame pushing to double their lead the Canucks looked briefly like they had tied the contest After a lengthy review bureaucrats determined that Raty had kicked the puck into the net and it was no goal But Vancouver tied the competition for real on a broken play before the second period was half over via a long-range shot through a crowd in front of Wallstedt It was the first career goal for Canucks rookie defenseman Tom Willander A minimal minutes later another shot from the blue line fooled Wallstedt and the Wild ascertained themselves trailing despite all of their early scoring chances The Canucks also scored on a -on- rush to make it - as Vancouver cashed in on three of their first nine shots on goal Minnesota made another push to start the third but instead of cutting into the Canucks lead Wallstedt s misplayed puck behind the net ended up making it - With Wallstedt on the bench and the Wild on a power play Zuccarello put a wrist shot in to pull Minnesota back within a pair in the final minutes Canucks rookie goalie Nikita Tolopilo making his third start of the season had saves as Vancouver moved to - versus Minnesota this season They will finish their season series with the Wild on April at Grand Casino Arena Coupled with Thursday s - loss in Calgary it is only the third time this season that the Wild have had back-to-back losses in regulation and the first time since Oct The Wild conclude their four-game western road trip on Monday facing the Kraken for the first time this season in Seattle The opening faceoff is scheduled for p m CT Briefly After missing the road trip s first two games with a lower body ailment rookie center Danila Yurov returned to the lineup and took his place as the middle man on the top line between Kaprizov and Zuccarello His return meant a healthy scratch for bottom six center Ben Jones Related Articles Hynes likes Tarasenko s meeting wants to see more shots Latest scoring drought has Wild thinking power play Boring goalie tandem behind Wild s climb in West standings Flames dominate late to douse Wild point streak Nico Sturm a greater asset for Wild as he gets up to speed