Wild rally in third period, sweep two-game set with Golden Knights

LAS VEGAS -- Kirill Kaprizov and Joel Eriksson Ek scored 55 seconds apart in the third period, and the Minnesota Wild rallied for a 2-1 win against the Vegas Golden Knights at T-Mobile Arena on Saturday.

Cam Talbot made 27 saves for the Wild (23-11-2), who swept a two-game set here and are 5-1-1 in their past seven games.
"We really went in after the second period and said, 'We've been here a lot,'" Minnesota coach Dean Evason said. "We clearly didn't know we're going to score two goals, but we kept doing the right things. All the lines and six [defensemen] were engaged in this hockey game."
Minnesota won its fourth straight against Vegas after losing the first two March 1-3.
"We got something to prove coming into this building," Talbot said. "There's not too many teams better in locking it down to preserve a win [than Vegas]."

Tomas Nosek scored for the Golden Knights (24-10-2), who have lost three in a row in the regular season for the first time under Peter DeBoer since he was named coach Jan. 16, 2020. Marc-Andre Fleury made 25 saves.
"They're a good defensive team and we knew coming into this series we were going to have to win net-fronts. Story of tonight, their two goals went a combined, probably, 8-12 inches," DeBoer said. "I don't think we went there enough, but we had enough chances to extend the lead and put them in a hole where they had to change the game and we didn't do that."
Nosek scored his second goal in four games with a backhand from between the circles at 5:33 of the first period to give the Golden Knights a 1-0 lead.
Kaprizov scored for the third straight game when he one-timed Eriksson Ek's cross-ice feed for a power-play goal at 6:13 of the third period to tie it 1-1, and Eriksson Ek scored on his rebound to end a nine-game goal drought at 7:08 for the 2-1 final.

The Golden Knights were 15-0-0 when leading after two periods.
"We played pretty defensive. We made a lot of mistakes," Vegas captain Mark Stone said. "We've had our looks, we've had our chances. Go up 1-0 into the third and lost the game, we were right there. Just got to find more ways to score goals."
Talbot made 11 saves in the third. He is 7-1-1 with a 1.64 goals-against average and .950 save percentage in his past nine starts.
"Tonight, I thought, was one of our more complete games of the season," Talbot said. "We stuck with it in the third period. That's a big character win, and two big wins in this building."
NOTES: Minnesota forward Mats Zuccarello (lower body) did not play and is day to day. … Kaprizov tied the Wild record for the longest goal streak by a rookie (
Marian Gaborik
, 2000-01;
Pascal Dupuis
, 2001-02). … Fleury lost consecutive starts for the first time since March 8-10 at Minnesota and remains one win from tying
Ed Belfour
(484) for fourth in NHL history. … Golden Knights defenseman Nick Holden had one shot in 15:59 in place of defenseman
Nicolas Hague
, who was a healthy scratch. … Vegas forward Ryan Reaves (lower body) missed his third consecutive game, and defenseman Zach Whitecloud (upper body) missed his second.