Kaprizov has 2 goals, assist, Wild edge Lightning

ST. PAUL, Minn. -- Kirill Kaprizov had two goals and an assist to extend his mutlipoint streak to seven games, and the Minnesota Wild defeated the Tampa Bay Lightning 5-3 at Xcel Energy Center on Friday.

Kaprizov has 17 points (six goals, 11 assists) during his streak and became the fifth active player with at least 20 points (seven goals, 14 assists) through 10 games of a season.

“It’s the way that he plays, the way that he competes, his willingness to play on both sides of the puck,” Wild coach John Hynes said. “He’s out on the 5-on-6, right, so he has some of those goals. But you’re not just putting him out there because you want to get him an empty-net goal. He’s proven that he’s committed to playing both sides of the puck 5-on-5 and he’s been very good in those situations. I think that’s what makes him special.

“We talk about a one-trick pony, he’s not a one-trick pony. He’s obviously a point guy and a highly talented offensive player, but his commitment to play for the team, and his commitment to do the things necessary when he doesn’t have the puck, is what’s really impressive to me.”

Joel Eriksson Ek and Brock Faber scored, and Mats Zuccarello had two assists for Minnesota (7-1-2), which has won six of its past seven games. Filip Gustavsson made 28 saves.

“Yeah, it’s nice win, but I feel like we play not our [best] hockey in first period,” Kaprizov said. “Maybe it was because it was a long trip and something like that. But I feel like second and third period we played better, and Gus [made] huge saves and a couple blocked shots and we scored our goals.”

Brayden Point, Jake Guentzel and Nick Paul scored, and Victor Hedman had two assists for the Lightning (7-4-0), who had won three in a row. Andrei Vasilevskiy made 17 saves.

“After the fact, you look at it, ‘Do I think that we deserved some points out of this game?’ I do,” Tampa Bay coach Jon Cooper said. “I thought we deserved points the first time we played them. They end up getting four. We get zero. And you look at it, there were so many good things that happened on our side for the game, but timing is everything. 2-2 game with five minutes left and we give one up, it's tough. At times like this ... there's not moral victories. In the end, you're gonna wake up tomorrow and we got zero points.”

Point made it 1-0 on the power play at 19:15 of the first period. Victor Hedman’s rebound found Point in the slot, where he buried it into the open net.

Eriksson Ek scored 47 seconds into the second period to tie the game 1-1. Kaprizov beat Lightning defenseman Erik Cernak down the wing and sent a cross-ice pass to Eriksson Ek for a one-timer.

Faber put Minnesota ahead 2-1 at 2:41 of the third period with a wrist shot from atop the circles, but Guentzel tied it 2-2 at 6:23 with a shot five-hole from the left face-off dot for a power-play goal

“You're not going to lead every game the whole game, right? There's going to be adversity,” Faber said. “There's going to be, just like last [year], injuries and things like that and off nights. And being able to find a way to win like that, a more gritty win, a very imperfect win, we're definitely really happy with that.”

Kaprizov put Minnesota ahead 3-2 at 14:37 with a tap-in after a scramble in front of the net, and Matt Boldy scored into an empty net at 16:57 to make it 4-2.

With Vasilevskiy pulled for the extra attacker, Nick Paul cut it to 4-3 at 17:34, but Kaprizov scored an empty-net goal at 19:29 for the 5-3 final.

“I think we shot ourselves in the foot a few times,” Paul said. “In this league, you can't do that. Every little goal matters, every little play matters. It was a tough one tonight.”

NOTES: Ryan Hartman played 10:46 and was minus-1 in his return after missing the previous five games with an upper-body injury. … Kaprizov became the first player this season to reach 20 points. In doing so, he became the first Wild player to be the first in the NHL to reach that mark in a season.