Quinn Hughes and Kirill Kaprizov each tallied a goal and an assist to lead the Minnesota Wild past the Vancouver Canucks 4-2 on Sunday night at Rogers Arena.
Minnesota opened the scoring late in the first period on the power play. Maxim Shabanov converted a snap shot at 18:33 off feeds from Kaprizov and Matt Boldy to make it 1-0. Bobby Brink then extended the lead 5:54 into the second period with his first goal of the season, beating Canucks goaltender Leevi Merilainen with a backhand finish set up by Michael McCarron.
Hughes pushed the Minnesota advantage to 3-0 at 12:55 of the second period, capitalizing on a power play with a snap shot assisted by Joel Eriksson Ek and Shabanov. Kaprizov padded the margin to 4-0 early in the third period, scoring on a backhand at 3:38 with an assist from Hughes. Vancouver answered at 6:24 when Max Sasson snapped a shot past Calvin Pickard, followed by Brock Boeser's snap shot at 16:53, but the Canucks could not close the gap any further.
Minnesota finished 2 for 5 on the power play and successfully killed Vancouver's lone opportunity with the man advantage. Pickard stopped 15 of 17 shots to earn the victory for the Wild, while Merilainen made 30 saves on 34 shots as Minnesota outshot Vancouver 34-17.
The victory was the second straight for the Wild, who improved their regular-season record to 8-3-2. The Canucks dropped to 2-10-1 and extended their winless streak to 10 consecutive games.
Both teams continue regular-season action on Tuesday, October 27. The Wild visit the Utah Mammoth, while the Canucks travel to face the Anaheim Ducks.
