Wild ride on Zucker and Dubnyk to four game streak

The Minnesota Wild are riding a four-game win streak behind a hot Jason Zucker, forward, and a brick wall in Devan Dubnyk, goalie.

The win streak started against the Montreal Canadiens on Nov. 9, when Zucker tallied his first career hat trick in the Wild’s 3-0 win. In that game, Dubnyk was red hot, stopping all 41 shots that he faced that night, earning his first shutout of the year.

The Wild’s next game came against the Philadelphia Flyers on Nov. 11. Zucker, again, was able to score the game winning goal, which was the only goal of the night. Dubnyk tallied another shutout, saving all 32 shots.

Coming into their third game, Zucker had scored six straight goals for the Wild, two of them coming in against the Toronto Maple Leafs on Nov. 8. The Wild ended up losing that game 4-2.

Going into their next game against, Zucker was only one goal away from tying an NHL record for most consecutive goals scored by a player. They were playing the Flyers, again, on Nov. 14, and in the first 12 seconds, the streak ended. Nino Niederreiter scored and thus gave the Wild their first non Zucker goal in 184 straight minutes.

The Wild were able to win this game 3-0 giving them a three-game win streak, Zucker was still able to score giving him his seventh goals in four games. Dubnyk managed to record another shutout stopping 30 shots this time. He had stopped 103 shots in the last three games.

Because of those three straight shutouts for Dubnyk, it moved his save percentage from .903 to .926 and his goals-against average from 3.04 to 2.36, according to Michael Russo. This is Dubnyk’s 2nd time recording three straight shutouts, his last one was 10/25-10/29 of last year.

The Wild going into the Nashville Predators game were riding a three-game win streak and 195 straight minutes of not allowing a goal. Sadly, that was ended within the first minute of the game and over halfway through the second period, they were down 3-0. It wasn’t looking good for the Wild to continue their win streak.

Luckily, the Wild didn’t gave up. Matt Dumba, defenseman, got it going and, quickly, the Wild were only down 3-2. The Predators got one back early in the third but the WIld answered with four straight goals to win 6-4.

Zucker again was able to tally another goal, making it eight in five games. He is currently leading the team with 11 goals. He is also leading the NHL in third period goals with eight, seven of them coming in the past five games. He was also named the first star of the player of the week on Nov. 13.

These last four games have helped bring the Wild back over .500 and have them sitting at 20 points with a 9-7-2 record.

The WIld will look to continue their impressive, and season-best, win streak on Nov. 18 against the Washington Capitals.