Wild open road trip with emotional overtime victory

The Minnesota Wild made it through perhaps the most hard part of overtime by killing off a penalty.

Then the Wild kept on going.

Jason Zucker scored his second goal of the game with 1:10 left in the extra period, giving the Wild a 3-2 win over the Carolina Hurricanes on Thursday night.

Minnesota had to kill off an overtime power play to set up the victor. But Devan Dubnyk was terrific, stopping each chance Carolina had with the man advantage.

The Wild’s late first-period goal and second-period goal erased a miserable start in a half-empty arena. “That’s something you might see once in a while”.

“I didn’t think our second was almost as good as the rest of the game”, Hurricanes head coach Bill Peters said. “It’s a character win for sure”.

Dubnyk finished with a season-high 37 saves, including a number of robberies. Jets centre Andrew Copp returned to the lineup after a four-game absence due to an upper-body injury….

Thomas Vanek has begun to give the Minnesota Wild the production they signed him for, after struggling through an injury-influenced first season with the team.

First Period – 1, Carolina, Faulk 6 (E. Staal, Rask), 4:26 (pp). “I’m just trying to get speed”.

“We got five (goals on Tuesday), but we can’t expect to get five every night”, he said. “Can’t rely on our goalies to make those kinds of saves for us like that”.

The Wild (10-3-2) withstood an overtime power play for Carolina, which was 3-0 in previous overtime games this season, before the winning goal.

After the scoreless third the game went into overtime, a period that has been good to Carolina so far this season. “We had to just weather it”.

Carolina Hurricanes’ Justin Faulk (27) and Minnesota Wild’s Charlie Coyle (3) skate for possession of the puck during the first period of an NHL hockey game in Raleigh, N.C., Thursday, November 12, 2015.

Peters liked his team’s start but was upset about the second period, when the Canes were outskated and outplayed, saying, “Our (lack of) intensity and effort in the second period denied us the opportunity to get two points”.

Second Period – 4, Minnesota, Vanek 7 (Pominville, Granlund), 9:41. He snapped a shot past Ward.

The second goal of the game came for Nestrasil, who had a mostly open net after Dubnyk fell out of the way.

“What do you want me to say?” But after reviewing the play, the goal from Andrej Nestrasil stood, his first of the year, with assists to Jay McClement and Joakim Nordstrom. The Hurricanes won the draw and quickly worked the puck to Faulk. Carolina couldn’t solve Lundqvist but that couldn’t be said for Cam Ward who was charged with all three NY goals on 23 shots.

The Wild improved to 1-2 in overtime. Fellow rookie defenseman Noah Hanifin – picked fifth overall in last summer’s draft – has also played well enough to stick around and burn one year of his entry-level contract, but was been a healthy scratch the last two games.

Minnesota (9-3-2) will play without Zach Parise for at least another week after he sprained his right MCL during a 3-2 home loss to Nashville on November 5.

“It’s huge”, Peters said of the homstand. We know how it works, standings-wise.

For a few reason the Wild felt compelled to have Bertschy and Olofsson play last night for Iowa. This game marked the start of a four-game road swing for the Wild, with the next stop Saturday at Dallas….