Iowa Wild's week report

The Iowa Wild have played three games last weekend and one last night. They've first met with the defending Calder Cup Champion Grand Rapids Griffins twice (Friday-Saturday), then in Hamilton and against Toronto, back in Des Moines.

Just 50 seconds into the game, Cory Emmerton scored the first goal for GR. Raphael Bussieres tied the game at 1 five minutes later from Brian Connelly. With the assist, Connelly got his 200^th career AHL point. In the second period, Carson McMillan gave the Wild a 2-1 lead.

In the third period, Red Wings prospect Teemu Pulkkinen tied the game. It was a matter of time since that period was all Griffins. The Wild were lucky that the GR goaltender Tom McCollum rather was nonchalant that night. Captain Jake Dowell scored from Marc Hagel and Steven Kampfer on a pretty much empty netter to make it 3-2, which was the final score. Strong night for Johan Gustafsson with 41 saves. Game highlights.

In the second game in Grand Rapids, Kyle Medvec scored from Taylor Matson and Dowell. 1-0 Iowa was the score after one period. Andrej Nestrasil scored one past John Curry to make it 1-1 after two. Mitch Callahan, Tomas Jurco and Brennan Evans all scored for the Griffins in the third period. The final score was 4-1 GR. Curry made 30 saves. Game highlights.

In Hamilton, Canadiens prospect Gabriel Dumont scored a late goal to make it 1-0 after one.  Hamilton native Marc Hagel scored his first AHL goal on a beautiful play from Warren Peters and newcomer Justin Mercier. Later in the second, Nathan Beaulieu got a PP goal. In the third, Nick Tarnasky got a very late empty net goal after a mistake from Connelly. Gustafsson made 31 saves despite the 3-1 loss. Game highlights.

Back in Des Moines last night, Dowell opened the score from Hagel. Kampfer added another one on a nice play from Jim McKenzie and McMillan before the end of the first. Spencer Abbott got a PP goal for the Marlies in the second. In the third, Abbott scored his second goal of the game on the PP again. Then, McMillan got a goal from Bussieres and Connelly. Josh Leivo tied the game at 3 with the third Marlies PP goal.

With the Wild being 0/5 on the PP after 60 minutes, the game went to overtime. T.J. Brennan scored (his 4^th point of the night) at the 1:21 mark and the Toronto Marlies beat the Wild 4-3. Gustafsson was in net and made 33 saves. Game highlights.

The Wild will host the Lake Erie Monsters tomorrow night and Saturday afternoon at the Wells Fargo Arena. Then, they'll be on the road for the next three games.

Some news and notes:

-Iowa recalled Taylor Matson from OSB last Saturday. The former Gopher player had 3 points in 6 games in Orlando. He has 3 goals and 1 assist in 29 games with the Wild.

-Brett Bulmer will miss 6 to 8 weeks as per Russo. That's relatively good news considering he's recovering from a sprained ankle and sprained knee. It could have been worse.

-Tyler Graovac has missed the last 4 games due to a lower body injury. It's not believed to be serious according to Russo. He's practicing with the team.

-Tyler Cuma has missed couple games due to an undisclosed injury since early December. He's also practicing with the team.

-Kristopher Foucault has missed the last 3 games due to an undisclosed injury. He's out indefinitely.

-Good read from Tom Witosky about the team.

-As of today, the Wild are 12^th in the Western Conference with 35 points in 36 games.

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