Alex Stalock made a season-high 40 saves and Zach Parise and Ryan Suter each had a goal and an assist as the visiting Minnesota Wild moved into the top wild-card spot in the Western Conference with a 3-2 victory over the San Jose Sharks on Thursday night.
Alex Galchenyuk also scored a goal for Minnesota, which has 75 points and leapfrogged four teams to the wild-card spot. Vancouver, Nashville, Winnipeg and Arizona are all one point behind.
Stalock improved to 9-2-1 in his last 12 starts as the Wild extended its road win streak to six games.
Joe Thornton and Stefan Noesen scored goals for San Jose, which had its three-game winning streak snapped. Martin Jones finished with 24 saves.
Minnesota took a 1-0 lead at the 8:34 mark of the first period on Suter's eighth goal of the season, a slap shot from the left point past a screen by Ryan Donato that beat Jones on his blocker side.
San Jose tied it six minutes later on a power-play goal by Noesen, who deflected Noah Gregor's shot from the right point inside the right post for his seventh goal of the season.
The Wild took a 3-1 lead in the second period on goals by Galchenyuk, who picked up a loose puck in the slot and fired a shot past Jones' glove side, and Parise, who tapped in a Luke Kunin pass into the left side of the net for his team-leading 25th goal of the season.
It marked the 10th time that Parise has scored 25 or more goals in a season.
San Jose cut it to 3-2 midway through the third period when Thornton picked up a rebound on the left side of the net and scored his sixth goal of the season and the 419th of his career.
The Sharks pulled Jones for an extra attacker with two minutes remaining but managed just one shot on goal, a tip-in try by Timo Meier that Stalock smothered.
--Field Level Media
Minnesota | San Jose | |
Zach Parise 2 | Points | Stefan Noesen 1 |
Zach Parise 1 | Goals | Stefan Noesen 1 |
Zach Parise 1 | Assists | Noah Gregor 1 |
N/A | Power Play Goals | Stefan Noesen 1 |
N/A | Short Handed Goals | N/A |
Alex Stalock .952 | Save Percentage | Martin Jones .889 |
Alex Stalock 40 | Saves | Martin Jones 24 |
Team | Shots | Goals | Power Play | Penalty Kill | Penalty Mins | Face Offs Won |
Minnesota | 27 | 3 | 0-1 | 2-3 | 6 | 26 |
San Jose | 42 | 2 | 1-3 | 1-1 | 2 | 23 |