Buchnevich scores late in 3rd, Blues edge Wild
Buchnevich and Robert Thomas each had a goal and an assist, and Joel Hofer made 22 saves for St. Louis (22-29-9), which had lost four of five, including 3-1 to the New Jersey Devils on Saturday.
“We play great third period,” Buchnevich said. “On the road, on a back-to-back, it’s tough. After two periods, it’s 1-1, not a bad result. Third period was our best. We didn’t give out much, score a big goal and shut them down.”
Thomas was playing in his first game since Jan. 10. The forward missed the previous 13 games with a lower-body injury and had been away from the team for personal reasons since Wednesday.
“It’s always tough missing a month,” Thomas said. “I mean, game kind of felt better as the game went on and I felt pretty good.”
Kirill Kaprizov tied Marian Gaborik for most goals in franchise history (219) for Minnesota (35-16-10), which has lost two straight after winning its previous six. Filip Gustavsson made 21 saves.
“I thought it was a hard-fought game,” Wild coach John Hynes said. “I thought we had enough looks to be able to get more than one goal. … I thought we did some things that we needed to do. Sometimes you can play a hard-fought game and not find a way to win it.”
Kaprizov put the Wild ahead 1-0 on a power play at 16:09 of the second period. Quinn Hughes sent a saucer pass across to Matt Boldy, who picked it up on his backhand and sent it to Kaprizov at the left post for the redirection past Hofer.
Kaprizov extended his point streak to seven games (six goals, four assists), and Boldy extended his personal point streak to 10 games (eight goals, 11 assists).
“I think we got to the net a lot today, and we have so many chances,” Kaprizov said. “Goalie played pretty good. I think we sometimes can do a little bit more side to side passing, shooting, because we try to shoot just straight sometimes and it just goes a little far away from the net. Just shoot on him and he did a couple good saves, too. Yeah, but I feel like we played pretty good and so many chances.”
