Boston Bruins coach Claude Julien has accomplished a lot during his 12-plus seasons as an NHL coach. A Stanley Cup champion in 2011 and Jack Adams Award winner as coach of the year in 2009, Julien earned his 500th career NHL win when the Bruins defeated the Minnesota Wild 4-2 at Xcel Energy Center.
Julien has 381 victories since joining the Bruins prior to the 2007-08 season and has guided Boston to the postseason in seven of his eight seasons behind the bench. He won 72 games in three seasons as coach of the Montreal Canadiens (2002-06) and 47 more with the New Jersey Devils in 2006-07. Julien, 55, tied Toe Blake for 22nd on the NHL all-time wins list.
David Krejci had a goal and an assist and Brad Marchand, Loui Eriksson and Zdeno Chara also scored for the Bruins, who have started a season-long six-game road trip with consecutive victories. Boston won without forward and leading scorer Patrice Bergeron, who missed the game with an undisclosed injury. Goaltender Jonas Gustavsson made 31 saves.
Thomas Vanek scored his 15th goal for Minnesota, which tied a franchise record with its eighth consecutive home defeat. The Wild, who have lost eight straight games and 13 of their past 14, could set a new mark next weekend when they host the Chicago Blackhawks in the 2016 Coors Light Stadium Series at TCF Bank Stadium on Feb. 21. Wild goaltender Darcy Kuemper made 15 saves.
Marchand and Krejci connected on a short-handed give-and-go at 6:18 in the first period to take a 1-0 lead. Marchand carried the puck into the zone and dropped a pass back to Krejci in the high slot. Marchand circled back to the left post and was wide open for a tap-in for his team-leading 27th goal.
Vanek corralled a turnover behind the Bruins' net midway through the second period and banked the puck in off Gustavsson's right pad to tie the score at 1-1 at 11:13. Less than a minute later, Krejci scored off another rush, taking David Pastrnak's pass on the back door and banking the puck off a sliding Nino Niederreiter into the net for his 13th at 11:48. Niederreiter knocked the net off its moorings and the goal was confirmed after a video review confirmed Krejci's shot would have gone in had the goal stayed on its pegs.
Ryan Spooner sprung Eriksson on a breakaway at 6:58 of the third, with Eriksson finishing off his 200th NHL goal by slipping the puck through Kuemper's legs. Chara added an empty-net goal at 18:18 before Wild defenseman Mike Reilly scored his first NHL goal with 35.8 seconds remaining.
Minnesota outshot Boston 33-19, continuing a recent trend. The Wild have outshot and out-attempted each of their past four opponents but have gone 0-3-1 during that stretch.
Wild Quotes
Ryan Suter: "It's good energy in the room before the games. Guys are saying the right things like, 'Let's go, let's turn this around, we're still in this,' Every game, the further you get into this, the more difficult it is. It's no fun, that's for sure. We have the urgency. It's frustrating when you don't get the result."Mike Yeo: "It's almost more difficult to do what we are doing right now than it is to win a whole bunch of games. We just keep finding different ways to lose hockey games. [On Saturday], we give up a [short-handed goal], we give up a breakaway goal and we give up a 2-on-1 with a forward defending it. It's not exactly a recipe for winning hockey."
"I'm disappointed in that game, very disappointed in that game. We had three games where the outcome could have been different. There was three games where it looked like we were coming, and I was expected a much different performance from our group today."
Other Results
New Jersey @ Philadelphia 2-1 OT
Toronto @ Vancouver 5-2
Nashville @ Florida 5-0
NY Islanders @ Carolina 3-6
Ottawa @ Columbus 2-4
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