Stalock leads Wild to shutout win against Canucks

A 28-save shutout for Alex Stalock made a goal a period more than enough for the Minnesota Wild to open its Best of Five NHL Western Conference Qualification Series with a 3-0 win against the Vancouver Canucks.

Kevin Fiala, playing the point on a Wild powerplay hammered a shot that trickled through the pads of Jacob Markstrom seconds into the first powerplay in the third minutes of the contest.

The other two goals both came off the stick of Jared Spurgeon, the first on another Wild powerplay halfway through the second period and the final one into an empty Canucks’ cage 47 seconds from the final buzzer.

Spurgeon carries a 100 percent shooting percentage into the second game of the series notching goals on his only two shots in the contest. Fiala led the Wild offensively with five shots.

Stalock handled 28 shots to grab the goose egg, half of them coming in a wild opening frame that saw the Canucks outshooting the Wild 14-12.

Markstrom looked solid as well other than that first goal which he stopped, but couldn’t control, handling 28 of 30 shots.

As usual, Ryan Suter led the team in time on ice, with 23:36, one of four defenders to cross the 20-minute plateau. Others included Spurgeon (22:46); Matt Dumba (22:00) and Jonas Brodin (21:57).

The Wild will be looking to take a stranglehold on the series today (August 4) when they faceoff at 9:30 p.m. (CST) in Edmonton. Game three will be played Thursday with a start time still to be determined.

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