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After emotional win over Avs, Wild suffer letdown vs. Sabres: Takeaways

November 30, 2025
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ST. PAUL, Minn. — What a difference a day makes.

Friday afternoon, the Minnesota Wild went toe to toe with the best team in the NHL and came out on top, beating the Colorado Avalanche in a shootout. It was a hard-checking, high-tempo, end-to-end affair against a division rival, an entertaining battle between the two hottest teams in the league in an arena full of energy.

Saturday night, the Wild lost in a shootout to the Buffalo Sabres. It was a game where the Wild didn’t have nearly the same amount of energy and Grand Casino Arena wasn’t nearly as hyped up. The Wild paid for allowing the Sabres to hang around and ultimately couldn’t sustain any offensive zone pressure over the last two periods.

“It’s hard I think from a mental aspect, but that’s the challenge in this league to come from a game where there’s hype before the game, two of the best teams, two of the hottest teams in the league, and you’re amped up and then the next time you gotta play a team that doesn’t look good in the standings,” center Nico Sturm said after the 3-2 shootout defeat. “But as you saw today, there’s no easy teams in the NHL. We all know that, but that’s a challenge in this league to show up 24 hours or less sometimes when your emotions come from the highest highs to the lowest lows. After the game, you come down and you come ready to play the next game.”

The Wild sure started well, building a 2-1 first-period lead on goals by Kirill Kaprizov and Matt Boldy. But the Sabres tied the score in the third period on a fluke goal when Mats Zuccarello accidentally gloved a rebound off the glass into his own net. Filip Gustavsson then allowed three goals in a four-round shootout.

“They came out hard, and we had tough time getting out of our zone and they got some pressure there,” Zuccarello said. “But I think we defended well, and obviously, it was an unlucky goal when I put it in the net. But when you’re not at your best, you’re gonna lose in this league. Every team is a good team. But it wasn’t our best today, and we got a point, and we’ve got to move on.”

The Wild’s seven-game winning streak came to an end, but their 11-game point streak (9-0-2) continues as they ended the month of November 11-1-2, completely flipping the switch following three wins in 12 games last month.

Still, as good as the Wild have been this month, there’s a reason why the Avalanche have lost one game in regulation through 25 games. They returned home to play Montreal on Saturday and spanked the Canadiens, 7-2. The Wild, on the other han,d had a disappointing yet predictable letdown.

“Colorado had the same game that we had last night, and they came back out and they beat Montreal pretty good, and then we weren’t at our best tonight,” coach John Hynes said. “Not what it was last night. So to me, that’s where we got to grow as a team. It’s the willingness and the attitude to put that same game on the ice, night in and night out. And I think that’s truly what teams that can win regularly in the league in the regular season have. So I thought we had it to start the game, but we didn’t have it sustained for 60 minutes. And that’s the growth we got to get to.”

This was Minnesota’s last home game until Dec. 11. The Wild, after practicing Monday, leave for a four-game trip that starts Tuesday night in Edmonton.

Boldy, Kaprizov remain hot

During the Wild’s scorching hot month, their most reliable goal scorers were as good as it gets.

They continued their scoring ways Saturday night by each notching a first-period goal.

Kaprizov extended his goal streak to five games and his point streak to seven with his 17th goal. Zuccarello’s cross-crease pass to the backdoor set Kaprizov up and wound up being the 700th point for the highest-scoring Norwegian player in NHL history. Zuccarello became the third undrafted player to debut in the past 30 years to record 700 points (Martin St. Louis had 1,033 and Artemi Panarin has 896).

“It doesn’t really mean anything right now, but one day when I retire, I’d probably look back and it’s a cool achievement,” Zuccarello said of the milestone. “But right now it’s tough to think about, … especially, I wish they’d count that (fluke) goal as a goal as well. It would be 701, you know?”

Just 1:23 after the Sabres tied the score at 1, Boldy scored his 15th goal after picking Alex Tuch’s pocket. It was Boldy’s 10th goal and 16th point in the past 12 games.

In the shootout, Boldy scored his 11th career shootout goal and Kaprizov his eighth. Zuccarello, who has 40 career shootout goals, couldn’t convert. Nor could Vladimir Tarasenko, who returned from a lower-body injury after missing seven games.

What a run for Spurgeon and Middleton

For the first time in 16 games, Jared Spurgeon and Jake Middleton were on the ice for a five-on-five goal against. Spurgeon entered Saturday’s game having played 225 minutes, 45 seconds in that span, and Middleton had played 203 minutes, 9 seconds.

Middleton was on the ice for 11 five-on-five goals in that span and Spurgeon for 10.

It was the 14th game since Spurgeon and Middleton became a pair again, after Spurgeon was mostly playing with Zeev Buium, and Middleton with the since-demoted David Jiricek. In that span, the Wild had outscored opponents 9-0 at five-on-five with them on the ice.

But in the first period, Beck Malenstyn had a rebound deflect in off of him after a three-on-two following an offensive-zone turnover by Danila Yurov.

“We’ve always been, since I came here, we’ve had that yin and yang thing going on,” Middleton said of being paired with Spurgeon. “We read off each other well, granted, Spurge can do that with any partner. He’s an exceptional player in that sense. But no, we’ve been reading off each other well and just kind of not forcing anything, and doing what we have to do in the defensive zone.”

Gustavsson was good until he wasn’t

Colton Ellis was excellent for Buffalo with 22 saves, and Gustavsson was also terrific with 30. The Wild were severely outchanced in the final 40 minutes, but Gustavsson was up to the task with point-blank saves against the likes of Tage Thompson and Tuch.

Buffalo, according to Natural Stat Trick, had a 12-3 edge on the Wild on high-danger chances at five-on-five, yet Gustavsson didn’t give up one. And the two goals he did give up were fluky.

However, he wasn’t happy with the way he played in his first shootout of the season.

“Overall, I thought I played fine throughout the whole game except the shootout,” he said. “I lost my patience a little bit. I didn’t hold my edges long enough there, and then they saw that and went around me.”




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