Game Recap: Canucks 4, Wild 2

VANCOUVER -- Aatu Raty had two goals and an assist for his first three-point game in the NHL for the Vancouver Canucks in a 4-2 win against the Minnesota Wild at Rogers Arena on Saturday.

Raty took advantage of an increased role higher up the lineup after top center Elias Pettersson left pregame warmups and was a late scratch with an upper-body injury.

“It [stinks] because he's one of our better players, and an assistant captain and everything but it's so close to a game, you can't really think about it,” Raty said. “Just say a couple of things with the new linemates, go over some things, and then just go to the game. … I try to score every game and play as best I can, but it never hurts to get a couple extra shifts.”

Tom Willander scored his first NHL goal and had an assist and fellow rookie defenseman Elias Pettersson also scored for the Canucks (11-15-3), who won for the first time in five games (1-3-1) and second time in nine (2-6-1) despite playing on back-to-back nights.

Rookie Nikita Tolopilo made 28 saves for his second win in his third start of the season.

“It's good that we finally get some pucks in and that we get a win,” Willander said of the first home win since Nov. 8. “We've had a bit of a rough run, and I think maybe the results haven't really reflected how we played, so actually being on a good end of that feels good.”

Mats Zuccarello and Matt Boldy each had a goal and assist and Jesper Wallstedt made 16 saves for the Wild (15-9-5), who have lost two in a row following a 12-game point streak (10-0-2). It was the first regulation loss of the season for Minnesota’s rookie goalie (8-1-2), who had won seven in a row.

“The story of this game is we didn't capitalize on the chances that we had,” coach John Hynes said. “I thought we carried play most of the night. We didn't get rewarded for the effort we put in offensively and then we had a couple self-inflicted wounds. But I thought, from an effort standpoint and the intensity standpoint, I think when you look at the overall game in any measure, we probably deserved a little bit better than what we got tonight.”

Boldy put the Wild ahead 1-0 at 3:11 of the first period, converting a 2-on-1 cross-ice pass from Zuccarello, who had just finished serving a tripping penalty to Wallstedt, with a one-timer from the right face-off dot past a stretched-out Tolopilo.

But Tolopilo made a couple tough saves before the end of the first period, including a right pad stop on a Kirill Kaprizov breakaway at 12:15.

“This is the most grade-A chances we've had in many games,” forward Nico Sturm said. “So it's tough to say we don't create. If we're up 2-0, 3-0 after the first, this game is going in a completely different direction and all the momentum and the fans, we're taking them out of the building, and so we got to fault us for that. At some point we got to bear down.”

Vancouver appeared to tie it seven minutes into the second period when Kiefer Sherwood sent a backdoor pass to an open Raty off the rush, but video review initiated by the NHL Situation Room determined Raty kicked the puck in with his left skate.

Willander tied it 1-1 at 9:29, taking a cross-ice rush pass from Linus Karlsson atop the right face-off circle and sending a wrist shot back over the blocker shoulder of Wallstedt.

“It was amazing,” Willander said of his first NHL goal. “Big personal achievement, but helping you chip into the team, getting one of these very important victories was great.”

Pettersson put the Canucks ahead 2-1 at 11:46 after Raty won a face-off back to Willander, who passed across to Pettersson for a quick wrist shot from the left point through traffic.

“They scored good hockey goals, and they switched the momentum, and we just couldn't get the puck in,” Wallstedt said. “I just got to fight through the screen a little better. I thought I got stuck behind the screen a couple times today where I just couldn't catch the release, and that makes it hard. I felt like I just didn't give us a good enough chance to win today.”

Raty made it 3-1 on a 2-on-1 rush at 15:12, keeping the puck and firing a wrist shot over Wallstedt’s blocker from inside the left face-off circle.

Raty then stole the puck from Wallstedt behind the net and tucked it in at 5:09 of the third period to make it 4-1.

“I think [Sherwood] yelled to the goalie, ‘leave it,’” Raty said. “He messed up their breakout.”

Wallstedt took full responsibility for it.

“I thought a different player was coming in and then I just missed the puck twice, and he ended up stripping it from me,” Wallstedt said. “I should make a play faster and just get the puck out of my hands, but it happened, it's a lesson to be learned and move on from.”

Zuccarello scored a 6-on-4 power-play goal with Wallstedt pulled for an extra attacker on a screened wrist shot over Tolopilo’s glove at 17:22 for the 4-2 final.

NOTES: Wallstedt’s 10-game point streak was tied for the fourth longest by a rookie in NHL history to start a season. His seven-game winning streak was the second longest by a rookie in team history and tied for the fourth longest all-time. … Canucks coach Adam Foote said Pettersson’s injury was discovered on Saturday morning but they thought he’d be OK to play and will be re-evaluated on Sunday. … Vancouver forward Evander Kane was plus-2 in 15:38 after missing Friday’s game with illness.