Kirill Kaprizov’s second OT winner in as many games lifts Wild past Montreal

The Wild are proving hard to sink.

“Not like the Vasa ship in Sweden, right?” Marcus Foligno said after Thursday night’s 4-3 overtime victory over Montreal at Xcel Energy Center.

Well, maybe.

The Vasa sank after sailing just more than a mile on its maiden voyage, not unlike the 2023-24 Minnesota Wild. Recovered from the depths in the 1950s, the Vasa is now admired by all who see it enshrined in a Stockholm museum — including some Wild players during their NHL Global Series games there in November.

Marco Rossi scored his first three-point game, and had his first hockey fight at any level, and Kirill Kaprizov scored his second overtime winner in as many games as the Wild continued its ascent from the depths with another remarkable victory.

On the other end, Filip Gustavsson stopped 22 for 25 shots.

After beating Boston without defensemen Jonas Brodin and Jared Spurgeon, and points leader Mats Zuccarello on Tuesday, the Wild beat the Canadiens without those three and winger Ryan Hartman, scratched before gametime with an upper body injury.

The Wild have won four of five games and are 9-3-0 since John Hynes’ first game as head coach back on Nov. 28.

“We’ve got a lot of guys out — a lot of quality guys out, too. It’s not easy. This is a hurt lineup,” said Marcus Foligno, who had an assist and finished plus-1 on Thursday. “But at the same time, this is the character we have. We’re deep and we have character guys that want to play the right way, and John has us with the right message and identity.”

Kaprizov beat the Bruins with a backdoor goal with 2:06 left in overtime Tuesday at TD Garden. He did the same thing to Montreal on Thursday, only this time with 4.9 seconds left. He has three goals and three assists in his last two games.

Matt Boldy gave Minnesota a 1-0 lead on a power play goal 13:19 into the game, and Brock Faber gave the Wild a 3-2 lead with 8:57 left in the game. But Montreal wouldn’t go quietly, rallying from deficits of 2-0, 2-1 and 3-2.

“Obviously, they jumped on us pretty early,” said Montreal win Brendan Gallagher. “We battled back, battled back. We were slowly feeling like we were taking over the game. They made one more play than we did.”

The Wild appeared on their way early, taking a 2-0 lead into the first intermission. But the second period was bleak. Already skating 11 forwards, they lost Rossi midway through after he picked a fight with Kaiden Guhle, who had just flattened Kaprizov with a check into the boards.

“From my perspective the hit was worse than it looked, probably,” Rossi said. “So, I was just trying to step up for him there.”

It was Rossi’s first fight at any level, and it cost him 17 minutes. Teammates Zach Bogosian, Brock Faber and Vinni Lettieri skated to the box to pay alms, but soon after Rossi skated off the ice and didn’t come back until there was just more than 10 minutes left in the game — just in time to earn an assist on Faber’s go-ahead goal with 8:57 remaining.

That gave Rossi the so-called Gordie Howe hat trick — a goal, an assist and a fight.

“You’ve gotta give him props for that,” Hynes said, “but it was tough to lose him, too, because he had some legs tonight. Like, he was going, so when he was out, that did affect us a little bit.”

During that time, the Wild compounded their problems with a boarding penalty on Foligno, then a double minor for roughing on Zach Bogosian with just more than 5 minutes left.

The Wild survived the second period with a 2-1 lead, but the Candadiens still had 1:19 of power play left and tied the game when Nick Suzuki poked the puck out of Gustavsson’s grasp and tapped it into an empty corner at 18:42 of the third period.

Faber’s wrist shot from the point on a power play made it 3-2 with 8:57 left, but Juraj Slafkovsky tied the game with 3:03 remaining, setting up the Wild’s fourth overtime period in its past five games.

Kaprizov ended it after taking a pass from Marcus Johansson on a late rush.

“It’s an unbelievable pass by Jojo there and again, Kirill doesn’t miss those much, so very similar play (to the winner in Boston),” Faber said. “That was big to get it done there and not leave it up for chance (in a shootout), obviously. He’s rolling.”

So are the Wild.