How Wild rallied, then blew late lead in first regulation loss to Flyers: 3 takeaways

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PHILADELPHIA — In a typical afternoon matinee where the Minnesota Wild played well but had trouble executing for the first half of a game against the Philadelphia Flyers, the Wild looked like they were going to respond to their first two-goal deficit of the season Saturday afternoon with a second consecutive come-from-behind win.

In a chaotic barnburner, the Wild rallied from a 2-0 deficit to take a 4-3 lead, then had to rally from a 5-4 deficit when Jake Middleton scored a dribbling tying goal with 6:32 left. But Rasmus Ristolainen scored the winning goal with 2:24 left before Sean Couturier completed a hat trick into an empty net for a 7-5 Flyers win.

The Wild suffered their first regulation loss of the season and saw their seven-game point streak to start the season end (5-1-1). The Wild are 5-12-1 all-time in Philadelphia.

The Wild scored four times in a 7:24 span between the second and third periods to take a one-goal lead, but they then surrendered a pair of goals to the Flyers 3:31 apart.

After the Wild took only their second penalty in three games, Travis Konecny made the Wild pay on the power play, and then Filip Gustavsson gave up a fifth goal to Couturier soon after.

It was Gustavsson’s toughest start of the season. After allowing seven goals in five games previously, Gustavsson gave up two goals on the first three shots he faced, four goals on the first 10 shots he faced and six goals on 22 shots overall. He’s now 4-1-1 this season.

Brock Faber, Marcus Foligno and Joel Eriksson Ek scored in the final 5:06 of the second period and Foligno scored his second of the game and of the season 2:18 into the third period to give the Wild a 4-3 lead.

Kirill Kaprizov notched his career-best fifth consecutive multi-point game with two assists. He has eight assists over a five-game assist streak.

Defenseman Jared Spurgeon has rejoined the Wild on the road but missed his sixth consecutive game. Center Ryan Hartman was sent back to Minnesota and missed his fourth straight game with an upper-body injury.

The Wild traveled to Pittsburgh after the game where Marc-Andre Fleury will start for the final time in Pittsburgh. The Wild are 4-1-1 on their seven-game trip.

Floodgates open in the second

It was so obvious throughout the second period that if the Wild could just get one, the floodgates would open. Other than a 91-foot dump-in, the Flyers basically went 30 minutes between shots yet the Wild were fanning on passes and shots left and right in typical afternoon-game fashion.

But finally, when Faber scored his first goal of the season, the dam broke.

Thirty-three seconds later, Foligno tied the score at 2-2 with his first goal of the season. Then, after rookie Matvei Michkov scored a nice goal on a delayed penalty to regain the lead for Philly, Middleton shrewdly threw a puck into a Flyers line change for a too-many men on the ice penalty with 51 seconds left in the period.

Kaprizov sent a goalmouth pass to Eriksson Ek for his fourth goal of the season on the ensuing power play to tie the score at 3-3 with 3.2 seconds left in the second.

Rare bad start for the Wild

Gustavsson, who had given up seven goals in his previous five starts, was beaten twice on the first three Flyers shots Saturday. It was the first time in eight games this season that the Wild surrendered the first goal.

Jonas Brodin was pickpocketed by Konecny and moments later, Gustavsson served up a perfect rebound to Couturier off Ristolainen’s point shot 78 seconds into the game. Two minutes later, former Wild defenseman Nick Seeler picked a spot when Gustavsson, screened by Zach Bogosian, was way off his angle for a 2-0 lead.

That goal came 3:51 into the period. The Wild didn’t give up a shot the rest of the period and controlled play the rest of the way. However, Samuel Ersson was good and Bogosian, Liam Ohgren and Eriksson Ek fired pucks just wide of openings left open by Ersson.

So in essence, those first four minutes caused the Wild to have to play significant catch-up in the second period.

Eriksson Ek’s busted nose targeted

It took one game of struggling with the puck in Columbus for Eriksson Ek to remove the fish bowl over his face.

But three games after returning from a well-publicized broken nose, known pugilist Garnet Hathaway thought he could get away with one when he intentionally elbowed Eriksson Ek in the noggin while killing a penalty.

Eriksson Ek was clearly in pain and stayed on the ice for a bit before rising to his feet. Referee Chris Rooney called a minor penalty for roughing and gave the Wild a 25-second five-on-three. The Flyers and Ersson did a great job killing off the two-man disadvantage and the rest of the Hathaway minor. During the ensuing TV timeout, Eriksson Ek had blood wiped off the inside of his visor, then talked with Rooney about not calling a major on the play.

Late in the game, after the Wild gave up the go-ahead sixth goal, Mats Zuccarello negated a power play when chopped down by Hathaway. On the ensuing scrum, Hathaway again grabbed Eriksson Ek and went to business on his face.

(Photo: Kyle Ross / Imagn Images)

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