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ANAHEIM, Calif. – The Wild played like a different team from the second period on because they were a different team.
Well, sort of.
A nearly wholesale lineup shuffle occurred after a ho-hum first period against the lowly Anaheim Ducks, and the Wild responded by running away 4-0 on Tuesday night at Honda Center for their fourth win in five games to extend their season-long point streak to eight (6-0-2).
This catapulted the Wild over St. Louis in the Western Conference wild-card race.
Their road trip concludes Wednesday night at Los Angeles.
Kirill Kaprizov scored for a fifth consecutive game, Marat Khusnutdinov picked up his first NHL point, and Filip Gustavsson stopped 27 shots for his third shutout of the season in his return to the crease.
Ryan Hartman nabbed a goal and an assist to continue doing an effective job at filling in for the injured Joel Eriksson Ek at center on the top line. Matt Boldy factored in a pair of goals, and the Wild won the special-teams showdown, too, going 1-for-4 on the power play while denying all three Anaheim looks.
All in all, the Wild turned in the type of no-nonsense performance expected of a team that came into the game with a 25-point edge in the standings over its opponent.
But they apparently needed a nudge to get down to business.
They traded chances with the Ducks in the first period, and although Anaheim never capitalized, the pace — and 0-0 tie — reflected better on the Ducks than the Wild.
Cue the first-intermission makeover.
Marcus Foligno took Kaprizov’s spot alongside Hartman and Matt Boldy to open the second period, and the new-look line scored just 35 seconds later when Hartman buried a Foligno rebound for his third goal in his past five games.
Three shifts later, Khusnutdinov won an offensive-zone faceoff that Frederick Gaudreau scooped up and handed to Jon Merrill for a rising shot by Anaheim goalie John Gibson (28 saves) at 1:56 while Khusnutdinov was in Gibson’s sightline as a screen.
Marcus Johansson, who took Foligno’s spot next to Khusnutdinov and Gaudreau, retrieved the puck out once it was dislodged from the netting since Khusnutdinov’s assist off the faceoff signaled his first NHL point in his third game with the Wild since leaving Russia.
Then at 11:50, Kaprizov stuffed in the puck at the post on the power play for his team-leading 36th goal and sixth during his five-game goal streak.
The goal was Kaprizov’s 150th in the NHL, and he became the fastest in Wild history to reach that plateau.
As for his eight-game point streak, which is tied for the second-longest in his career, the winger has 10 goals and four assists.
At 5-on-5, Kaprizov reunited with longtime linemate Mats Zuccarello and Marco Rossi, a trio the Wild also used in the third period of Saturday’s 3-2 shootout loss at St. Louis.
Only the fourth line stayed together, and they also delivered.
With 6:57 to go in the third period, Adam Beckman (who took Vinni Lettieri’s seat in the lineup after being a healthy scratch for three games) fed Jake Lucchini for a one-timer.
But the surge on offense wasn’t the only sign of the Wild sharpening up.
Gustavsson, after weathering that early pressure from the Ducks in the first period, remained locked in after a lengthy layoff.
This was his first appearance since March 8, a 2-1 overtime loss at Colorado, but Gustavsson didn’t look rusty.
One downside for the Wild was Jonas Brodin exiting early, leaving the third period with a lower-body injury after getting dropped to the ice by Anaheim’s Alex Killorn.
As he fell, Brodin’s right leg was crumpled under his body.
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