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ST. PAUL, Minnesota (Ticker) -- Trevor Linden broke one team record and helped the Vancouver Canucks tie another. Linden's shorthanded goal early in the third period turned out to be the difference as the Canucks held on for their seventh straight victory, 2-1 over the Minnesota Wild in a battle of the top teams in the Northwest Division. Linden beat Manny Fernandez on a shorthanded breakaway for his 263rd goal as a Canuck, breaking the record he shared with Stan Smyl. It gave the Canucks a 2-0 lead and became the game-winner when Andrew Brunette spoiled Dan Cloutier's shutout bid with 4:59 to play. "Sami Salo made a great play, standing up there, and I just kind of knew I was in there," Linden said. "I thought it was going to go five-hole. Then I thought he was going to pokecheck. So I tried to shoot it back in, and it worked." "It was great to see Trevor score the second goal," Canucks coach Marc Crawford said. "It was a beautiful goal for him to set the record for the Canucks and be the eventual game-winner. And it's one of the nicer ones he ever scored." Henrik Sedin scored the other goal on a deflection for Vancouver, whose winning streak matches the longest in club history, established from February 10-23, 1989. "We don't try to look at anything more than each game," Crawford said. "Our team's always done our best when we prepare singularly. We found a way to win tonight, and it was a good win for us." Cloutier, who has been in net for each game during the streak, made 27 saves and helped the Canucks kill all nine Minnesota power plays. They climbed within two points of the first-place Wild. "Our special teams won the game for us tonight," Crawford said. "Our special teams are just that - special." Fernandez stopped just 15 shots for Minnesota, which had a five-game unbeaten streak snapped. "We got a lot of shots, but we couldn't score," Wild winger Marian Gaborik said. "We got that one goal late. That seemed to inspire us a little. We seemed to pick it up in the third but couldn't get the tying goal." Sedin put the Canucks in front on the power play 4:44 into the first period. Brendan Morrison took a slap shot from above the slot that Sedin deflected past Fernandez's glove for his first goal in 23 games dating back to last season. Cloutier preserved the lead with a sprawling stop on Jim Dowd early in the second and robbed defenseman Brad Brown with two minutes to go in the period. After Minnesota climbed within a goal late in the third period, Cloutier gobbled up a blast by Gaborik, who leads the NHL with 15 goals. "It was a very hard shot," Cloutier said. "He's already dominating this league. It's scary the potential he's got." Asked whether his teams power-play struggles were a result of Vancouver's solid penalty-killing, Wild coach Jacques Lemaire said, "Maybe half and half. We had a lot of chances, we worked very hard. You need to get a few breaks, and when you work hard, it seems you get the breaks. But it didn't happen tonight." |
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