Joel Eriksson Ek and Kirill Kaprizov on Monday each had hat-tricks and tied the franchise record with six points for the Minnesota Wild, who faced a three-goal deficit in the second period before storming back with six unanswered goals in a record-filled 10-7 victory over the NHL-leading Vancouver Canucks.
“You could feel the way we were engaged in the game that there was no letdown,” Wild coach John Hynes said. “Whether it was 4-1 or 5-2, the mindset was still the same.”
Minnesota’s six scores in a span of 5 minutes, 45 seconds was the fastest such flurry in the NHL in 25 years, since Washington had six goals in 4:47 in a 10-1 win against Tampa Bay on Feb. 3, 1999.
Photo: AFP
Eriksson Ek and Kaprizov each had three assists.
Matt Boldy, Mats Zuccarello, Marco Rossi and Jonas Brodin also scored for the Wild, who set franchise goal records for a single game and a single period with seven scores in the third. They also registered their fastest four-goal stretch in team history, all on the power play in a span of 2:17 to take a 6-5 lead early in the third period.
Zuccarello scored on a 5-on-3 with 27 seconds left in the second period. The Wild switched goalies at the intermission from Filip Gustavsson to Marc-Andre Fleury and then they let loose as the sloppy and sluggish Canucks squandered a hat-trick by J.T. Miller.
“Even when they went up 7-5, 8-5, we still felt pretty comfortable,” Miller said. “At least our line, we were just in their zone every shift, and I think we felt like we had one of those nights where we could tie it up. Just such a weird game.”
With Miller, Eriksson Ek and Kaprizov each scoring three goals, this was the first regular season game with three hat-tricks since Nov. 8, 1992, when Mike Donnelly, Luc Robitaille and Jari Kurri all got one for the Los Angeles Kings in an 11-4 win over the San Jose Sharks.
The 16 total goals was the most in any game the Wild have played in.
“Stressful. Very stressful,” center Ryan Hartman said. “But fun.”
The qualifying round of the World Baseball Classic (WBC) is to be held at the Taipei Dome between Feb. 21 and 25, Major League Baseball (MLB) announced today. Taiwan’s group also includes Spain, Nicaragua and South Africa, with two of the four teams advancing onto the 2026 WBC. Taiwan, currently ranked second in the world in the World Baseball Softball Confederation rankings, are favorites to come out of the group, the MLB said in an article announcing the matchups. Last year, Taiwan finished in a five-way tie in their group with two wins and two losses, but finished last on tiebreakers after giving
North Korea’s FIFA Under-17 Women’s World Cup-winning team on Saturday received a heroes’ welcome back in the capital, Pyongyang, with hundreds of people on the streets to celebrate their success. They had defeated Spain on penalties after a 1-1 draw in the U17 World Cup final in the Dominican Republic on Nov. 3. It was the second global title in two months for secretive North Korea — largely closed off to the outside world; they also lifted the FIFA U20 Women’s World Cup in September. Officials and players’ families gathered at Pyongyang International Airport to wave flowers and North Korea flags as the
For King Faisal, a 20-year-old winger from Ghana, the invitation to move to Brazil to play soccer “was a dream.” “I believed when I came here, it would help me change the life of my family and many other people,” he said in Sao Paulo. For the past year and a half, he has been playing on the under-20s squad for Sao Paulo FC, one of South America’s most prominent clubs. He and a small number of other Africans are tearing across pitches in a country known as the biggest producer and exporter of soccer stars in the world, from Pele to Neymar. For
Coco Gauff of the US on Friday defeated top-ranked Aryna Sabalenka 7-6 (7/4), 6-3 to set up a showdown with Olympic champion Zheng Qinwen in the final of the WTA Finals, while in the doubles, Taiwan’s Chan Hao-ching was eliminated. Gauff generated six break points to Belarusian Sabalenka’s four and built on early momentum in the opening set’s tiebreak that she carried through to the second set. She is the youngest player at 20 to make the final at the WTA Finals since Denmark’s Caroline Wozniacki in 2010. Zheng earlier defeated Wimbledon champion Barbora Krejcikova of the Czech Republic 6-3, 7-5 to book
RSS