Minnesota Wild at Detroit Red Wings

Lucas Raymond scores twice in Red Wings' 2-1 win over Wild

Raymond finally broke through in the eighth game of the season after scoring 23 times last season as a rookie.

“It feels good,” Raymond said. “Of course it feels like I could have gotten one the previous games, too. It was good that I finally got it today. I feel like we could’ve had a lot more goals today.”

Raymond broke a tie on a power play with 4.3 seconds remaining in the second period. Driving into the goal crease with the puck, he managed to jam it through the legs of goalie Filp Gustavsson before tumbling into the netminder.

“Raymond kind of fans on it a little bit, but it hits my back leg and goes in,” Gustavsson said. “That’s super frustrating, especially with so little time on the clock.”

Raymond has five goals in three career games against Minnesota.

Kirill Kaprizov opened the scoring for the Wild at 1:28 of the first period on the second shot of the game. Breaking in on a 2-on-1, Karpizov utilized Jared Spurgeon as a decoy and snapped a high wrist shot under the crossbar behind Ville Husso.

“I think it probably hurt us by coming out so fast,” Wild coach Dean Evason said. “We had like four chances right away and it looked like we thought we could just continue doing that.

“We thought we were just going to play as a skilled hockey club and that doesn’t work. We’re about skill and grit. We can’t beat teams by being cute.”

Raymond tied it with 3:09 left in the first. He fired a wrist shot from the bottom edge of the right faceoff circle past Gustavsson on the blocker side.

Detroit coach Derek Lalonde liked how Raymond played as much as how many times he scored.

“You didn’t see the looping, you didn’t see the poaching for offense, you didn’t see the hoping,” Lalonde said. “He played the game right. He put himself in some good situations and obviously it went in tonight.”

Red Wings captain Dylan Larkin, Raymond’s center, felt it was just a matter of time before his linemate would start scoring.

“Whether the puck goes in or not, we were getting chances,” Larkin said. “He put himself in great spots to receive the puck and he’s got a quick release. It was easy to find him tonight.”

Husso improved to 3-1-1. Gustavsson made 23 saves in dropping to 0-3.

The Wild lost in regulation for the first time on their five-game trip. Minnesota is 2-1-1 on the trip. After opening the season with back-to-back wins, Detroit went 1-2-2 in the five games prior to Saturday.

SEASON DEBUTS

Both right wing Givani Smith and defenseman Jordan Oesterle made their season debuts for Detroit. Smith was recalled earlier in the day from the Grand Rapids of the AHL.

TRAINER’S ROOM

Detroit played without forwards Tyler Bertuzzi (upper body), Jakub Vrana (personal), Robby Fabbri (knee), Oskar Sundqvist (upper body) and Michael Rasmussen (NHL suspension).

UP NEXT

Wild: Conclude five-game trip Sunday night at Chicago

Red Wings: At Buffalo on Monday night.

DET leads series 1-0