Minnesota Wild’s Russian forward Kirill Kaprizov was recognized as the first star of the National Hockey League’s (NHL) regular season match against the Carolina Hurricanes.
The match, which took place at the PCN Arena in Raleigh, USA, ended with Wild’s score of 5:2. Kaprizov scored a hat-trick in this match.
This NHL season, Kaprizov played in 39 games, recording 18 goals and 24 assists. During last season’s regular season, Kaprizov was the fifth most productive Russian behind Alexander Ovechkin, Evgeni Malkin, Artemy Panarin and Nikita Kucherov.
The second star was Wild goaltender Filip Gustafsson, who stopped 40 of his 42 shots. Hurricanes’ forward Michael Bunting took his place in the top three by scoring his team’s second goal of the match.
While Minnesota got its second consecutive win in the regular season, Carolina suffered its second defeat in the last three games of the National Hockey League.
Previously passed by Nikita Kucherov did not save Tampa’s loss to Detroit.