ST. PAUL, Minn. — At the intersection of skill and grit is where the Wild wants to play, and both styles were needed to shake off a Bruins lineup that skates the same way.
After a pair of Kirill Kaprizov goals, the latter an impressive breakaway finish, the other half of the Wild's identity finished off a 4-2 win in front of 17,956 on Wednesday at Xcel Energy Center to snap a two-game slide.
Jordan Greenway wired in a loose puck in front 7 minutes, 56 seconds into the third period to break a 2-2 tie, a fitting reward after weighty pressure around the Boston crease by his line with center Joel Eriksson Ek and fellow winger Marcus Foligno.
The goal was Greenway's second in as many games, and defensemen Jared Spurgeon and Alex Goligoski each picked up their second assists of the game on the play. Ryan Hartman added an empty-net goal with 5 seconds left, his 24th of the season.
With the win, the Wild reclaimed third place in the Central Division after getting bumped to a wild-card position. The Wild has 74 points with 23 games to go, including seven on this franchise-long nine-game homestand.
Cam Talbot made 24 saves in his fourth straight win, and Boston goalie Jeremy Swayman had 30.
This finish backed up consecutive goals by Kaprizov, who led the Wild to an early 2-0 lead in his first meeting with the Bruins since getting injured Jan. 6 at Boston and missing the next game.
On a revamped power play, Kaprizov opened the scoring with a shot from deep in the zone at 6:55 of the first period.
Then, at 14:28, he took a breakaway pass from linemate Mats Zuccarello and flicked the puck over Swayman for his sixth multi-goal game of the season. In between the goals, Brandon Duhaime fought the Bruins' Trent Frederic, who was the one that injured Kaprizov in the earlier matchup when he boarded Kaprizov.
Overall, Kaprizov is up to 32 goals; not only is that 10 shy of the Wild's single season record, but Kaprizov is only eight points away from tying the Wild's points record for a season (83 by Marian Gaborik in 2007-08).
With the assist on Kaprizov's second goal, Zuccarello matched his career high in points (61) previously set in 2015-16 with the New York Rangers.
But that wasn't enough offense to hold off Boston, which began its comeback before the first ended when Craig Smith pounced on a carom off Matt Dumba's skate with 3:01 to go.
By 1:49 of the second period, the Bruins had caught up to the Wild with their own power-play goal — a shot from the middle by Brad Marchand.
That was the 13th goal surrendered by the Wild penalty kill over the last 10 games; Boston ended up 1 for 2 and the Wild's power play went 1 for 3 with one of those goalless looks in the second period nearly resulting in a Bruins goal. Erik Haula was stopped by Talbot shorthanded, and then Anton Blidh had a shot stay out because it hit the post.
Despite that rough patch, the Wild escaped the period still even with Boston and that set up the make-or-break third period.
Not only did Greenway serve up the game-deciding goal, but he racked up a team-high six shots while also dishing out four hits. His line with Eriksson Ek and Foligno totaled 11.
