Brandon Saad broke a scoreless tie in the third period and Sergei Bobrovsky stopped 38 shots as the Columbus Blue Jackets beat the Minnesota Wild 1-0 on Thursday night.
Saad got his 19th goal of the year 4:32 into the final frame when he charged in to get his own rebound and poked it past Minnesota’s Devan Dubnyk, who played an otherwise excellent game. Dubnyk had 39 saves for the Wild, who lost for the first time in three games.
Bobrovsky was every bit as outstanding for the Blue Jackets in the battle of the All-Star goalies, collecting his fourth shutout this season and the 16th of his career.
He made a sprawling save of a doorstep shot by Martin Hanzal with about two minutes left in the first, and came up with another big one in the second when Jason Zucker got a breakaway but couldn’t penetrate. Zucker got another direct shot at the net in the third period that he couldn’t get past the Russian goalie.
