Joel Eriksson Ek and Kirill Kaprizov each had hat tricks and tied the franchise record with six points for the Minnesota Wild, who faced a three-goal deficit in the second period before storming back with six unanswered goals in a record-filled 10-7 victory over the NHL-leading Vancouver Canucks on Monday.
“You could feel the way we were engaged in the game that there was no letdown,” Wild coach John Hynes said. “Whether it was 4-1 or 5-2, the mindset was still the same.”
Minnesota’s six scores in a span of 5:45 was the fastest such flurry in the NHL in 25 years, since Washington had six goals in 4:47 in a 10-1 win against Tampa Bay on Feb. 3, 1999.
Eriksson Ek and Kaprizov each had three assists.
Matt Boldy, Mats Zuccarello, Marco Rossi and Jonas Brodin also scored for the Wild, who set franchise goal records for a single game and a single period with seven scores in the third. They also registered their fastest four-goal stretch in team history, all on the power play in a span of 2:17 to take a 6-5 lead early in the third period.
Zuccarello scored on a 5-on-3 with 27 seconds left in the second period. The Wild switched goalies at the intermission from Filip Gustavsson to Marc-Andre Fleury and then they let loose as the sloppy and sluggish Canucks squandered a hat trick by J.T. Miller.
Eriksson Ek and Kaprizov each scored on a 5-on-3 sandwiched around a delay-of-game penalty on Miller. Then Eriksson Ek scored again 5-on-4 to make it 6-5 just 1:44 into the third period. Rossi knocked in Jake Lucchini’s shot off his skate at 4:48 and Kaprizov tacked on another one at 5:12 to further the damage done to Canucks backup goalie Casey DeSmith’s statistics.
With Vancouver playing the first half of a back-to-back set of games, coach Rick Tocchet chose to keep primary netminder Thatcher Demko on the bench to rest.
“Even when they went up 7-5, 8-5, we still felt pretty comfortable,” Miller said. “At least our line, we were just in their zone every shift, and I think we felt like we had one of those nights where we could tie it up. Just such a weird game.”
Elias Pettersson got his team-leading 29th goal and Ian Cole had the first goal for the Canucks, who scored on their only two shots on net over the first 15-plus minutes of the game against Gustavsson.
The Canucks (37-14-6) took seven penalties and lost their second straight game. They fell to 28-7-2 when scoring first. Nikita Zadorov and Brock Boeser scored in the third period, cutting the lead to 8-7 with 2:08 to go, before the Wild tacked on two empty-netters.
“It’s actually stupid stick penalties you can’t do, and we’ve got to learn,” Tocchet said. “When you play under pressure, you cannot do those things.”
With Miller, Eriksson Ek and Kaprizov each scoring three goals, this was the first regular season game with three hat tricks since Nov. 8, 1992, when Mike Donnelly, Luc Robitaille and Jari Kurri all got one for Los Angeles in an 11-4 win over San Jose.
The 16 total goals was the most in any game the Wild have played in.
“Stressful. Very stressful,” center Ryan Hartman said. “But fun.”
