Wild players wanted a stiffer penalty for Zach L’Heureux from the NHL but say they're happy to take matters into their own hands Saturday.

The Minnesota Wild hosted the Utah Hockey Club on Thursday evening, Jan. 23, in their third meeting of the season. After being injured, they welcomed Kirill Kaprizov and Jared Spurgeon back to the lineup,

Yakov Trenin scored against his former team early in the third period, and the Minnesota Wild beat the Colorado Avalanche 3-1 on Monday.

Andrei Kuzmenko had two goals and an assist, and the Calgary Flames used their power play to beat the Minnesota Wild 5-4. Kuzmenko and Rasmus Andersson each had a power-play goal, and Martin Pospisil and Clark Bishop also scored for Calgary.

The Minnesota Wild and Calgary Flames met for the second time this season on Saturday evening, Jan. 25, and both teams were on the first game of back-to-backs.

Clark Bishop made it a three-goal game 11 minutes, 53 seconds into the third period. Then the Wild (28-17-4) tried to make a push. Freddy Gaudreau scored a power-play goal 2 minutes, 22 seconds later to cut it back to two. While Kuzmenko scored his second of the night just 14 seconds later for the apparent dagger, it wasn't quite over.

While still holding the best road record in the NHL, Minnesota fell to below .500 at home (11-12-1) with the loss.

A view of a Super Bowl LVIII sign after it was illuminated in a ceremony at the Neon Museum, 770 Las Vegas Blvd North, Tuesday, Jan. 14, 2025. The sign was displayed in the Fremont Street Experience during Super Bowl LVIII festivities.

All the Wild had to do was copy and paste the defensive effort that stalled Colorado the previous game. After all, if that strategy was good enough to limit one of the highest-scoring offenses in the NHL to one goal,

The Wild have a hard time explaining why there’s been such a difference in home/road splits this season. They boast a .740 points percentage (tops in the NHL) on the road so far, and .500 at home (23rd in NHL). Their Corsi-For per 60 at home in five-on-five play is 54.65 (30th in the league), and 55.03 on the road (23rd).

Kaprizov had a couple scoring chances for the Wild (28-16-4), who were delighted to get their superstar back after he missed the last 12 games with a lower-body injury. Karel Vejmelka made 26 saves for Utah (21-19-7) in what was just their second shutout win of the season.

Minnesota Wild forward Joel Eriksson Ek smiled when asked about two of his longtime teammates returning from injuries this week.