Jared Spurgeon scored one minute into overtime to give the Minnesota Wild a 3-2 victory over the Nashville Predators on Saturday at Xcel Energy Center. Spurgeon converted a wrist shot off passes from Kirill Kaprizov and Joel Eriksson Ek to end the contest.
The scoring started late in the opening period. Declan Chisholm put Minnesota ahead with his first goal of the season on a slap shot at 18:57, assisted by Frederick Gaudreau. Nashville answered just 42 seconds later when Fedor Svechkov scored his first goal of the season on a snap shot, with Luke Evangelista and Roman Josi collecting the assists.
Nashville claimed a 2-1 lead early in the second period when Ryan O'Reilly scored on a power-play tip-in at 2:29, set up by Steven Stamkos and Josi. Minnesota pulled even on a power play of its own at 8:24 as Kaprizov tipped in his 15th goal of the season following helpers from Marco Rossi and Spurgeon.
Special teams and goaltending stayed even through regulation. Both teams converted one of three power-play chances. Filip Gustavsson earned the win for the Wild with 25 saves on 27 shots, while Juuse Saros stopped 25 of 28 shots for the Predators in the overtime defeat.
With the victory, Minnesota improved to 16-4-4 and stretched its winning streak to three games. Nashville moved to 7-12-6, extending its winless slide to four games (0-1-3) with its third consecutive overtime defeat.
