Postgame Hat Trick: Wild 6, Sabres 2

Wild.com's Dan Myers gives three takeaways from the Wild's 6-2 win against the Buffalo Sabres at Xcel Energy Center in St. Paul on Thursday night:

1. With his mom and dad in the house, Nino Niederreiter tallied his second NHL hat trick in his first game back from injury.
After sustaining a lower-body injury in Florida before the Christmas break, the Wild was without its Swiss import for five games.
It didn't take him long to get re-acclimated, however.
Just 1:09 into the game, on his first shift back, Niederreiter gathered in a pass from Mikael Granlund near the left hashes and snapped a quick shot through the five-hole of Sabres goaltender Robin Lehner.

Later in the period, Niederreiter was on the board again when his second goal of the night helped Minnesota cash in on a five-minute major and a game misconduct to Rasmus Ristolainen for a high hit on Wild captain Mikko Koivu.

Granlund fed Niederreiter again four minutes into the second period, going no-look on a pass near the top of the crease. Lehner had no chance, as Niederreiter had a yawning cage after beating Jack Eichel to the net.

It was quite the show for his parents, René and Ruth, who have been in town from Switzerland since Dec. 26. They head back to Europe tomorrow.
"It's always great having them around here," Niederreiter said. "It was cool to have a chance to score a hat trick for them."
With Niederreiter sustaining the injury on Dec. 22, his parents' visit very nearly coincided with a stretch out of the lineup. Niederreiter said his dad will make one more trip to Minnesota this season, but Thursday's game likely marks the only time he'll get to play in front of his mom.
He made quite the impression.
"They wanted to see more games. I spent some nice quality time with them, but I'm glad they had a chance to see at least one game," Niederreiter said. "At the end of the day, you always like to play in front of your parents."
2. That line was fantastic from the opening puck drop.
Niederreiter scored on the group's first shift, but Granlund dished out three assists (all of them gorgeous) and Mikko Koivu had one goal and two assists.

For Granlund, it was his first career three-assist game, as he provided helpers on both of Niederreiter's even-strength goals, and on Koivu's goal at 13:07 of the second period, which gave Minnesota a 5-0 lead.
"I think you gotta work for each other if you have success offensively, and I thought we were able to support one another," Koivu said. "We always had two guys on pucks and that what you need when you create that forecheck."
Granlund now has two three-point games in his past four, three multi-point efforts in his past five overall and has been a point-per-night player over the past 14 games dating back to Dec. 8.

"We play with each other on the power play, so we kind of know each other very well from being on the power play," Niederreiter said. "We knew we had to play simple, and especially for myself, I didn't want to overdo it."
Since breaking an 11-game point drought in Ottawa on Dec. 19, Koivu has two goals and six points in eight games.
It was also a nice bounce-back game for Koivu and Granlund, who were held mostly in check in a 5-1 win over the Florida Panthers. On that night, it was the first and fourth lines that did most of the damage.
On Thursday, it was the second group. All three members of the line finished a plus-3.

"That's the kind of team you sorta want to have," said Wild coach Bruce Boudreau. "Last game when we won 5-1, Koivu's line got nothing and it was [Eric] Staal's line that got a couple goals. Tonight, it was Mikko's line that did most of the damage and Eric's line, we didn't need them."
3. Now at full strength, this Wild team looks pretty darn good.
Minnesota got Zach Parise back on Tuesday and responded with a five-goal effort in a win against the Panthers.
With Niederreiter back on Thursday, the Wild played with its full complement of players for the first time this season. It's hard to argue with the results.
Minnesota built on its early lead when Daniel Winnik did Dan things, tallying his fourth goal at 2:15. Charlie Coyle also scored a goal, his second consecutive game with a marker, which gave the Wild a 6-0 lead in the final minute of the second.

Over the past two games, the Wild have done a tremendous job of, not just having quality starts, but keeping the accelerator buried.
"I think that's something we hadn't done at the beginning of the year. So it's really important. You have to be able to push and get the team to have that killer instinct," Boudreau said. "In the second period I told them before, I said, 'You can make this easy or yourselves or you can make it tough on yourselves.' They went out and scored the fourth goal and I think that was the goal that broke their back a little bit."
After getting blanked in Nashville on Saturday, the second time in a four game stretch Minnesota had failed to score a goal, the Wild has responded with 11 goals in two games.
The goals won't always come in bunches like they have, but Minnesota certainly showed its potential moving forward.
"We're not going to score the whole season 6 goals a game. It's not going to work that way," Granlund said. "It's just nice to have these games."
"I think you always want that. It's not always easy but it shows you something that you can build confidence on," Koivu said. "Every team, you gotta be on top of every game or you can lose it in the first period. We want to keep doing that, stay on top of it and take it on the road as well."

Loose pucks

• Parise tallied his first point of the season, an assist on Coyle's goal late in the second.
• Marcus Foligno talled an assist against his former club.
• Wild goaltender Devan Dubnyk made 29 saves in the win.

• Lehner stopped 11 of 17 shots before departing the game before the start of the third period. Chad Johnson stopped all 10 shots he saw in the final period.
• Sam Reinhart and Evander Kane scored Buffalo's goals in the third period.
• Jason Pominville and Marco Scandella each had one assist in their returns to Xcel Energy Center.
• Attendance: 19,017

He said it

"That's our biggest thing is for us to play a complete game we have to have a good first period. That's our main focus to come out right away and if we get the first one that's great, if not, we've got to kind of get to our game as soon as possible."-- Wild forward Charlie Coyle

They said it

"A couple easy goals and maybe we were scrambling a bit but we have a game tomorrow so we gotta saddle up and be prepared and find a way to come out really hard next game." -- Sabres defenseman Marco Scandella

Three stars

* Nino Niederreiter
\\ Mikko Koivu
\\* Mikael Granlund