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VANCOUVER, British Columbia (Ticker) -- A superstar is budding, and so is a rivalry. Marian Gaborik recorded his third hat trick of the season to take over the NHL lead in goals as the Minnesota Wild inched closer to the first-place Vancouver Canucks with a 4-2 victory. Questionable before the game because of a charley horse, Gaborik broke out of his slump in a big way, scoring in each period to up his goal total to 18, one more than Atlanta's Ilya Kovalchuk. "He's amazing," Minnesota goaltender Dwayne Roloson said of Gaborik, a 20-year-old from Slovakia who had 30 goals last season. He's great offensively and defensively. He's got great skills and will continue to become a better player." Gaborik, who recorded a pair of hat tricks in November, had gone five games without a goal and had totaled only five points in the last 12 contests. He was hurt on a knee-to-knee hit Thursday in Calgary. "It was sore, a little bit," said Gaborik, who has five hat tricks in two-plus NHL seasons. "And I tried to have a good warmup." Defenseman Filip Kuba also scored and Wes Walz had a pair of assists for the Wild, who halted a five-game winless drought (0-2-2-1) to move within a point of Vancouver for first place in the Northwest Division. The Wild finished a 1-0-1-1 Western Canada road trip, having suffered an overtime loss in Edmonton before tying Calgary. They scored one goal in each game. "It was a rough road trip," Gaborik said. "We got a good effort on this trip. We played good. It feels good to win this one." After Gaborik finished his hat trick 3:48 into the third period, the Canucks carried play for the next 10 minutes or so. But Minnesota played the final 4:49 with the man advantage. The bad blood started when Vancouver defenseman Ed Jovanovski nailed Jason Marshall head-first into the boards. Marshall was down for several minutes and skated off the ice with the help of teammates while holding a towel to his bloody face. "He didn't expect the hit at all," Wild coach Jacques Lemaire said. "I was looking at the replay and his head bounced off the glass. It was a hit from behind, but Jovo could have hit him harder." Jovanovski was given a five-minute major for boarding and a game misconduct and could face disciplinary action from the league. In the final minute, with Minnesota's Cliff Ronning on a breakaway, Matt Johnson and Vancouver's Murray Baron exchanged punches in the Canucks' zone. The Wild improved to 1-2-0 in the season series, which continues January 16 in Minnesota. Kuba opened the scoring with 2:44 left in the first period before Gaborik got on the board 77 seconds into the second, waiting patiently on a 2-on-1 before putting a snap shot past Dan Cloutier from in tight. Markus Naslund halved Vancouver's deficit 1:16 later with his team-best 16th goal, but Gaborik made it 3-1 with 15:02 left in the second period, when he used a defenseman as a screen and put a snap shot past Cloutier from the left faceoff circle. "He's a good talent, great shooter and he has a good release," Lemaire said. "He's a quick learner. He's got good focus." Daniel Sedin got the Canucks within a goal midway through the second period, but Gaborik completed the hat trick 3:48 into the third, tipping Walz's point shot past Cloutier while skating through the slot. "That was very unlucky for Danny," Canucks coach Marc Crawford said. "They just got pucks at the net and got a good bounce." Less than a minute later, Roloson preserved the two-goal lead with his best save of the night as he dove back to his right to get a stick on Todd Bertuzzi's shot at the goalpost. Naslund extended his points streak to six games for the Canucks, who lost for the second time in three games following a 10-game winning streak and had a five-game run on home ice come to an end. They are 13-3-0 in their last 16. |
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