The holidays can be a time of great stress. But for the Minnesota Wild, the next few days will bring some welcome time away from the rink, after a rough final two games before Christmas.

On Tuesday the Wild got a point, but not a win, before their three-day break when Steven Stamkos scored in overtime as the Nashville Predators rallied for a 3-2 win over Minnesota. It was Nashville’s third consecutive victory, and a second straight loss for the Wild.

Stamkos popped in a quick shot after a set-up pass by Erik Haula for Nashville, which scored a pair of first period power play goals, and improved to 1-0-1 versus the Wild this season.

Brock Faber and Joel Eriksson Ek scored for the Wild in the first and second periods, respectively.

“I thought we played all right. It sucks,” Faber said. “Unfortunate ending. Special teams needs to get cleaned up.”

Filip Gustavsson had 26 saves for the Wild, who saw their losing streak grow to two games after they had won their previous seven. Special teams were problematic for Minnesota, which saw the Predators score a pair of power play goals, while the Wild were stifled on a trio of man advantage opportunities.

“Obviously, special teams was a huge factor in the game tonight,” Wild coach John Hynes said. “Penalties on both sides. There was a lot of special teams, and we lost that battle.”

Faber, who was playing in his 200th career game, opened the scoring with a rising rocket from the blue line after Quinn Hughes carried the puck in deep, then made a spinning pass back to his defensive partner.

But after killing their first penalty of the night, the Predators evened the score when Ryan O’Reilly slipped a backhand shot under Gustavsson’s left leg pad during Nashville’s first power play of the game. The Preds took the lead on their next power play, with Roman Josi snapping a wrist shot past Gustavsson to give the visitors a 2-1 lead after the opening period.

“The PK wasn’t good enough in the first period and then they scored two goals on that,” Gustavsson said. “We had to battle for it.”

The Wild needed less than a minute in the middle frame to tie it back up, with a Eriksson Ek put-back from the top of the crease with the Nashville goalie scrambling.

Late in the second, Minnesota forward Mats Zuccarello and Nashville forward Michael McCarron both went to the penalty box for slashing. With the teams skating 4-on-4, Eriksson Ek had a breakaway that was thwarted, then Wild captain Jared Spurgeon took a penalty, giving Nashville’s power play another chance. But three key saves by Gustavsson got the game to the second intermission with nothing further on the scoreboard.

Minnesota likely should have gotten a late power play when Predators defender Nick Perbix gave Wild forward Ryan Hartman a stick to the face with 91 seconds left in regulation. As boos rained down when the replay was shown, there was no penalty called on the play. Hynes said he did not receive an explanation for the lack of a call.

Nashville goalie Juuse Saros had 30 saves in the win. The Predators get two more cracks at Minnesota on home ice this season, hosting the Wild on Feb. 4 and again on April 11. The players agreed that the mental and physical break they have upcoming will be important.

“It’s tough being goalies on ankles, hips, knees, groin, and the mental aspect is probably the bigger part,” said Gustavsson, now 12-8-4 as Minnesota’s goalie of record.

The NHL’s mandated holiday break begins on Wednesday, with the Wild off until they visit the Winnipeg Jets on Saturday night, in the opener of their season-long seven-game road trip. The Wild will also visit Vegas, San Jose, Anaheim, Los Angeles (twice) and Seattle on the journey.

With the 2026 IIHF World Junior Championship taking place in St. Paul and Minneapolis beginning on Friday, Minnesota’s next home game is more than two weeks away. The Wild host the New York Islanders on Saturday, Jan. 10.

Briefly

Minnesota’s blue line crew returned to full health on Tuesday, with Zach Bogosian being activated off the injured reserve list. He had missed the previous four games with a lower body injury. With Bogosian back in the lineup, Matt Kiersted and David Jiricek were healthy scratches.

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NEW YORK — A coalition of 19 states and the District of Columbia on Tuesday sued the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, its secretary, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., and its inspector general over a declaration that could complicate access to gender-affirming care for young people.

The declaration issued last Thursday called treatments like puberty blockers, hormone therapy and surgeries unsafe and ineffective for children and adolescents experiencing gender dysphoria, or the distress when someone’s gender expression doesn’t match their sex assigned at birth. It also warned doctors that they could be excluded from federal health programs like Medicare and Medicaid if they provide those types of care.

The declaration came as HHS also announced proposed rules meant to further curtail gender-affirming care for young people, although the lawsuit doesn’t address those as they are not final.

Tuesday’s lawsuit, filed in U.S. District Court in Eugene, Oregon, alleges that the declaration is inaccurate and unlawful and asks the court to block its enforcement. It’s the latest in a series of clashes between an administration that’s cracking down on transgender health care for children, arguing it can be harmful to them, and advocates who say the care is medically necessary and shouldn’t be inhibited.

“Secretary Kennedy cannot unilaterally change medical standards by posting a document online, and no one should lose access to medically necessary health care because their federal government tried to interfere in decisions that belong in doctors’ offices,” New York Attorney General Letitia James, who led the lawsuit, said in a statement Tuesday.

The lawsuit alleges that HHS’s declaration seeks to coerce providers to stop providing gender-affirming care and circumvent legal requirements for policy changes. It says federal law requires the public to be given notice and an opportunity to comment before substantively changing health policy — neither of which, the suit says, was done before the declaration was issued.

A spokesperson for HHS declined to comment.

HHS’s declaration based its conclusions on a peer-reviewed report that the department conducted earlier this year that urged greater reliance on behavioral therapy rather than broad gender-affirming care for youths with gender dysphoria.

The report questioned standards for the treatment of transgender youth issued by the World Professional Association for Transgender Health and raised concerns that adolescents may be too young to give consent to life-changing treatments that could result in future infertility.

Major medical groups and those who treat transgender young people have sharply criticized the report as inaccurate, and most major U.S. medical organizations, including the American Medical Association, continue to oppose restrictions on transgender care and services for young people.

The declaration was announced as part of a multifaceted effort to limit gender-affirming health care for children and teenagers — and built on other Trump administration efforts to target the rights of transgender people nationwide.

HHS on Thursday also unveiled two proposed federal rules — one to cut off federal Medicaid and Medicare funding from hospitals that provide gender-affirming care to children, and another to prohibit federal Medicaid dollars from being used for such procedures.

The proposals are not yet final or legally binding and must go through a lengthy rulemaking process and public comment before becoming permanent. But they will nonetheless likely further discourage health care providers from offering gender-affirming care to children.

Several major medical providers already have pulled back on gender-affirming care for young patients since Trump returned to office — even in states where the care is legal and protected by state law.

Medicaid programs in slightly less than half of states currently cover gender-affirming care. At least 27 states have adopted laws restricting or banning the care. The Supreme Court’s recent decision upholding Tennessee’s ban means most other state laws are likely to remain in place.

Joining James in Tuesday’s lawsuit were Democratic attorneys general from California, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, Illinois, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, New Jersey, New Mexico, Oregon, Rhode Island, Vermont, Wisconsin, Washington and the District of Columbia. Pennsylvania’s Democratic governor also joined.

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To Karl-Anthony Towns’ credit, he did everything he could to keep the short-handed Knicks in the fight Tuesday at Target Center.

In his second game played in Minneapolis since being traded ahead of the 2024-25 campaign, Towns tallied 35 points and 11 rebounds.

The Knicks — who were without Jalen Brunson, O.G. Anunoby, Deuce McBride, Guerschon Yabusele and Landry Shamet — led midway through the third quarter.

But the Timberwolves eventually managed to overwhelm New York for the team’s third-straight win and 10th in its last 12 games via a 115-104 victory.

Anthony Edwards scored 38 points, Julius Randle had 25, 17 of which came in the final frame. Rudy Gobert continued his recent interior dominance, logging 11 points and 16 rebounds.

“Pick shoutout to Big Ju. He picked it up in the fourth quarter and led us to the win,” Edwards said in his postgame, on-court interview. “We call him ‘The Bully,’ and he played like a bully in the fourth quarter. ”

Towns fouled out with 35 seconds to play and exited the court to a nice ovation from the Minnesota faithful.

“Big shoutout to KAT,” Edwards said after the game. “Show love to KAT.”

Mikal Bridges and Josh Hart struggled mightily for New York (20-9), going 11 for 27 from the floor. Towns’ only assistance came in the form of second-year point guard Tyler Kolek, who logged 20 points, 11 rebounds and eight assists.

Bridges and Hart struggled on a night when the Wolves’ perimeter defensive intensity was stout, with Edwards playing a large role in those efforts.

Minnesota was out-rebounded 55-42, but made up that gap and then some by forcing 19 turnovers that resulted in 22 points.

Naz Reid had eight points and 11 rebounds, while Minnesota won Bones Hyland’s 25 minutes by a gaudy 24 points.

Minnesota next plays on Christmas night in Denver in a nationally-televised affair between two of the best teams in the West.

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Over the course of his hockey career, Andrew Brunette played for six different teams and has coached two more – including his current gig behind the bench for the Nashville Predators. So one would think that by now, walking into Grand Casino Arena some two decades after he spent three seasons in a Minnesota Wild sweater, it would feel like just another rink.

Not so.

“I think you always feel it,” Brunette said before his Preds faced the Wild on Tuesday night. He noted that while watching video of Minnesota’s previous game, versus Colorado, the Wild were decked out in replica sweaters from the early 2000s, when Brunette was a forward on the ice in St. Paul.

“It brings back a lot of memories for sure,” he said. “My whole tenure here was something I’ll never forget.”

And as the franchise celebrates 25 years, few Wild fans would argue that Brunette scored the biggest goal, so far, in Minnesota’s second stint with a NHL team. Round one of the 2003 playoffs, Game 7 in Denver versus the Avalanche, overtime, and Brunette stuffed the puck past legendary goalie Patrick Roy, giving the Wild their first-ever playoff series win.

“It was a little bit devastating for me. I was a big fan of Colorado back in the day because we used to live in Colorado and my dad coached there,” Wild forward Marcus Foligno recalled, conjuring up many details from a game he watched back home in Canada at age 12. The blow of seeing the Avalanche lose that one was softened a bit because Foligno and Brunette are both from Sudbury, Ontario.

“It was a heartbreaker, but it was also really cool, because it was a Sudbury kid that did it,” Foligno said. “Probably the biggest goal of his career. Crazy play, and then you could see Patty Roy, he always does that little head shake afterward. There was probably a swear word in French or something. That always sticks with me.”

Among the many historical photos of Wild games and stars from the past 25 years hanging in the Grand Casino Arena pressbox is one of Brunette, arms outstretched, mouth wide open as he skates away from the crease, without his stick, to celebrate the uncharted territory the Wild were visiting at that moment. Behind Brunette, one can see Roy, kneeling in some disbelief, as the final puck he faced in a hall of fame career eluded him. Roy retired after more than 1,200 games in the summer of 2003.

“Roy’s like, ‘If he scored on me, I’m done. I retire,’” Brunette joked about watching the play all these years later. “It’s funny, you see it and it looks so slow. And I thought it was actually fast.”

In his first season as a head coach, Brunette took over the Florida Panthers in October 2021 and led them to an Atlantic Division title and the NHL Presidents’ Trophy, given to the team with the best regular season record. But after a loss to rival Tampa Bay in round two of the playoffs that season, he was fired.

Brunette is currently in his third season as the head coach in Nashville.

“I think Bruno does a good job. I think he’s a smart guy, smart coach,” Wild coach John Hynes said. “His teams play with good structure and his teams have an offensive element. I think in his brain, his mind as a coach comes out in his teams.”

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