Kaprizov's Four-Point Night Powers Wild Past Sharks 4-1 as Streaks Keep Rolling

There is a stretch of hockey happening in Minnesota right now that the rest of the league should probably be paying closer attention to. Kirill Kaprizov scored his NHL-leading 16th goal of the season and added three assists on Friday night, Quinn Hughes chipped in a goal and two assists of his own, and the Wild beat the San Jose Sharks 4-1 at Grand Casino Arena, their third straight win and their sixth in seven games. The opener arrived early and it arrived on the power play, which is where so much of Minnesota's damage has been done this season. The Wild enjoyed a five-on-three advantage for a full 1:32 in the first period, and Kaprizov made it count at 7:56, taking a feed from Hughes and beating Yaroslav Askarov through the five-hole with a one-timer from the right circle. It was the kind of goal that looks routine only because Kaprizov makes it look routine, a quick release from his favourite spot, and it set the tone for everything that followed. San Jose, to its credit, did not fold. Macklin Celebrini, who seems to save some of his best hockey for the Wild — he now has 16 points in seven career games against Minnesota — tied it midway through the second period, redirecting a Dmitry Orlov pass over Jesper Wallstedt's shoulder at 12:11. For a moment, at 1-1, the Sharks had a foothold. It lasted about two minutes. Maxim Shabanov put Minnesota back in front at 14:15, redirecting a centering pass from Kaprizov past Askarov on another power play, and from there the Wild took control and never gave it back. Hughes made it 3-1 at 6:54 of the third, taking a pass from Kaprizov, skating across the zone and picking the far side with a high wrist shot from just above the left circle. Zach Bogosian finished the scoring at 13:58, handling the rebound of a Joel Eriksson Ek shot along the right wall and sending a high slap shot past Askarov for his first point of the season. The numbers around Kaprizov are starting to look silly. He has 13 points — five goals and eight assists — during a seven-game point streak, and his 16 goals lead the entire NHL. Hughes, meanwhile, extended his own point streak to seven games with four goals and eight assists in that span, and has now recorded a point in 16 of Minnesota's 18 games this season. Wallstedt made 23 saves, and the Wild improved to 5-0-1 at home, a building that is becoming a genuinely hard place to visit. For the Sharks, it was a fourth straight defeat, and the pattern is becoming a problem: two goals or fewer in each game of the skid. Celebrini's goal was the lone bright spot on a night when San Jose generated chances — Wallstedt had to stop Will Smith on a two-on-one rush late in the first and make a pad save on Celebrini's one-timer during a second-period power play — but could not finish enough of them. Askarov made 25 saves and kept the score respectable, but the Sharks are running out of moral victories to take from nights like this. Minnesota, on the other hand, keeps stacking real ones. Three in a row, six of seven, unbeaten in regulation at home, and the two best players on the roster producing at the same time. If the Wild keep this up, the conversation around them is going to change in a hurry.