Battle for NHL play-offs

Rossi and Minnesota are rewarded for their courage

Marco Rossi and his Minnesota Wild went "all in" on Sunday in the North American Ice Hockey League NHL against promotion rival Nashville Predators and were rewarded with a win. 

Matt Boldy scored the winning goal in the 4:3 home victory when Minnesota had one more field player on the ice in overtime. Coach John Hynes had ordered goalkeeper Marc-Andre Fleury to the bench in overtime and brought in an extra forward. Marco Rossi got 16:47 minutes of playing time.

It was the first time since October 2017 that a team had won the game with a fourth outfield player in overtime. "We needed two points. You don't always do that, but in our position we wanted to be aggressive. We want to keep fighting," explained Hynes.

Hope is alive
Minnesota is in ninth place in the Western Conference, six points behind the Vegas Golden Knights and nine points behind Nashville for one of the eight play-off spots. The Wild have 17 games remaining, Nashville 16 and Vegas 18.

Although Minnesota is still hoping to make the play-offs, the club lost four forwards in the transfer period that ended on Friday: regulars Brandon Duhaime, Pat Maroon and Connor Dewar as well as supplementary player Nic Petan.