NHL Game Summary - Vancouver at Minnesota
(Thursday, February 9th)
Final Score: Vancouver 5, Minnesota 2
St. Paul, MN (Sports Network) - Henrik Sedin played two days after taking a
puck off his ankle and scored a goal, and the Vancouver Canucks rolled to a
5-2 win over the Minnesota Wild on Thursday night.
Daniel Sedin had a goal and an assist while Maxim Lapierre, Manny Malhotra and
Ryan Kesler also scored for the Canucks, who are unbeaten in regulation in
their last eight games (6-0-2).
Vancouver stopped a streak of five straight overtime games. Henrik Sedin was
cleared to play his 553rd straight game despite concerns over his ankle, which
was injured while he blocked a puck in Tuesday's win over Nashville.
Cory Schneider had 22 saves for the Canucks in Thursday's victory, which
knocked the Wild to 5-14-5 in their last 24 games since mid-December. They are
0-3 against Vancouver during the stretch.
"We flat out stink the last two months," Wild head coach Mike Yeo said. "We
come in and don't have a good enough effort from too many guys and that's
concerning. I'm concerned about the fact that we come into games and we don't
have enough guys that should have absolute desperation in their game."
Dany Heatley and Devin Setoguchi scored for Minnesota and Niklas Backstrom
gave up four goals on 19 shots. Captain Mikko Koivu, who missed eight straight
games with a left shoulder injury, returned and was a plus-1 in nearly 23
minutes of ice time.
Heatley gave the Wild their only lead 13 seconds into the game when he slipped
in front from the right side and beat Schneider. But Daniel Sedin's power play
goal tied it and Lapierre gave Vancouver the lead for good with 42 seconds
left in the first period. Both goals came on rebounds in the slot.
Henrik Sedin's goal came 50 seconds into the middle period on a tic-tac-toe
play started by his brother on the left side. Byron Bitz took that pass and
fed it to Henrik low on the right side for an easy goal.
Malhotra made it 4-1 on a deflection in the third period and Setoguchi rattled
one in off the post on a power play with 4:02 remaining. Kesler's goal was
into an empty net.
Game Notes
The Wild started a four-game homestand that also includes visits from
Columbus, Anaheim and Winnipeg...Vancouver was 1-for-3 on the power play and
the Wild went 1-for-4.
02/10 01:34:06 ET

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