Eriksson Ek scores two, Wild hang on for win against Golden Knights

ST. PAUL, Minn. -- Kaapo Kahkonen made 24 saves for the Minnesota Wild in his eighth straight win, 4-3 against the Vegas Golden Knights at Xcel Energy Center on Wednesday.

It is the longest winning streak by an NHL goalie this season.
"It's been a fun time and winning is always fun," Kahkonen said. "Right now, it's tough to think what to think about the stretch, other than it's been fun. That's kind of my answer."
Joel Eriksson Ek scored two goals for Minnesota (15-8-1), which won 2-0 in the first of a two-game set Monday.
"The whole group played great. Every guy," Wild coach Dean Evason said. "We competed our butts off. The score, it's unfortunate, but obviously it's a win, so it doesn't matter what the score is. It's more like a 4-1 hockey game with the things we did correctly."
Dylan Coghlan
scored his first three NHL goals, and Marc-Andre Fleury made 25 saves for Vegas (16-6-1), which has lost two in a row after a six-game winning streak. Logan Thompson replaced Fleury at 8:21 of the third period and made two saves in his NHL debut.

Coghlan is the first defenseman in Golden Knights history to score a hat trick and is the third defenseman in NHL history to score a hat trick in the game he scored his first NHL goal.
"I wish we could've got the win, that would have been the icing on the cake," Coghlan said. "But I felt pretty good. As a team, I thought we made some mistakes. I thought I made a couple mistakes too.
"Takeaway from this, my first goal and I was lucky enough to get two more after that, so it is definitely a night I'll remember for the rest of my life."
Eriksson Ek scored unassisted off a turnover by Vegas defenseman Shea Theodore to give Minnesota a 1-0 lead 19 seconds into the first period.
Coghlan tied it 1-1 with a shot from the slot through traffic at 1:42.
"It's a 1-1 game going into the third period," Golden Knights coach Peter DeBoer said. "We still have a chance to win and get points. …The disappointing part for me is, it's still a winnable game going into the third with 20 minutes to play, and we didn't bring it in the third."

Kirill Kaprizov backhanded in the rebound of a Mats Zuccarello one-timer on the power play to give the Wild a 2-1 lead at 1:18 of the third period. It was Minnesota's first power-play goal since Feb. 22 (6-2 win at the San Jose Sharks), ending an 0-for-20 drought.
Eriksson Ek poked in the rebound of his own shot to make it 3-1 at 5:54, and Carson Soucy increased the lead to 4-1 with a one-timer from the right face-off circle at 7:41.
"We didn't break the puck out well, we didn't transition the puck well," Vegas captain Mark Stone said. "We didn't make proper plays in the [offensive] zone. We just didn't get any sustained zone time. To be honest, our execution was trash."

Coghlan scored at 4-on-4 to get Vegas within 4-2 at 14:00. He scored again to make it 4-3 at 17:50 with Thompson pulled for an extra attacker.
"We got the lead there in the third, but they pushed back hard," Kahkonen said. "It's just what it's going to be in a season like this, especially when there's so many games (in a condensed schedule), it's just a grind sometimes and you got to find a way to win different ways. I think good teams do that, and I think we're a really good team, and if we just keep doing the right things, we're going to be successful."
NOTES: The other two defensemen to score a hat trick in the game he scored his first goal were Uli Heimer for the New Jersey Devils against the Chicago Black Hawks on Oct. 31, 1984, and Joe Hall for the Montreal Canadiens against the Ottawa Senators on Jan. 21, 1918. There have been 27 forwards, including Blackhawks forward Pius Suter on Jan. 24 against the Detroit Red Wings. … Stone, a forward, returned after missing the game Monday with an undisclosed injury. He had an assist on Coghlan's third goal and was minus-1 in 19:43. … Golden Knights defenseman Brayden McNabb was plus-1 with two shots on goal and three hits in 17:18 in his return from a lower-body injury that had kept him out since Jan. 26. … DeBoer said earlier in the day that defenseman Alex Pietrangelo will be out for the "forseeable future" because of a lower-body injury. … Kahkonen is two victories shy of matching Devan Dubnyk for the longest winning streak in Wild history. Dubnyk went 10-0-0 from Dec. 4-29, 2016. … Tampa Bay Lightning goalie Andrei Vasilevskiy has a seven-game winning streak (Feb. 22-present). ... Minnesota has won five straight games at home dating to Jan. 31, scoring at least three goals in four of the five.