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With 1:12 on the clock in the second period, the Minnesota Wild got an extended 5-on-3 to finish out the middle frame. Down 5-2, they surely hoped the two-man advantage could spark them to a comeback against the Vancouver Canucks on Monday afternoon.
They got a spark, all right. That spark led to an explosion of scoring that couldn't have been more ferocious if you doused it in kerosene. Over the next 21:12, the Wild rushed pucks to the net and put up eight goals, thanks to a Joel Eriksson Ek hat trick, followed by a Kirill Kaprizov hat trick as a grand finale. It had the Xcel Energy Center feeling like The Twilight Zone and left defenseman Quinn Hughes nearly in tears on the bench by the game's end.
Wild fans had never seen that kind of outburst from their team before. Throughout their first 1,785 games as a franchise, they'd only topped out at eight goals in a game (seven times, most recently on March 15, 2023). Then in Game 1,786, they went ahead and set the record by two.
And that's just the first nutty fact we dug up about the Wild's thrilling 10-7 win. Thanks to Stathead.com, we'll have nine more where that came from.
2. Of course, we also just witnessed the highest-scoring game in Wild history... and it isn't close. With 17 total goals, just three games in team history even come close. That 2023 win over the Blues, as well as a 2022-23 7-6 opening game loss to the New York Rangers and an 8-5 win over the Coyotes in 2019 had the old record with 13 combined goals.
3. Minnesota's seven goals in the third period aren't just a team record, it's also the sixth time since 2000 that any team has scored seven or more times in a period.
4. Casey DeSmith had a rough day in net, giving up eight goals on 25 shots, but it was far from the worst day against the Wild in history. Somehow, 10 goalies (over 11 games) have faced 10 or more shots with a save percentage worse than DeSmith's .680 mark. We'll give the award for "Worst Game Facing the Wild" to Brayden Holtby, who played the entire game and made just one more save (6) than goal allowed (5) for a .545 save percentage in a 3-5 loss. Brutal!
5. The Wild are now the 32nd franchise in NHL history (counting the New Jersey Devils in a playoff game) to have a 10-goal game, though six of those franchises no longer exist. That leaves six teams remaining in the NHL without a 10-goal game: Anaheim Ducks, Nashville Predators, Seattle Kraken, Tampa Bay Lightning (!!!), Winnipeg Jets (former Atlanta Thrashers), and the Vegas Golden Knights. The Wild only have 54 to go before passing the Montreal Canadiens for most all-time.
6. Joel Eriksson Ek and Kirill Kaprizov both racked up six points on Monday. In one day, the Wild doubled the total number of six-point games in franchise history. Marian Gaborik had the other two: Two goals and four assists in a 2002 win against the Phoenix Coyotes, and the time he added an assist onto his five-goal game.
7. Monday was one of just 137 instances in all of NHL history where teammates have gotten hat tricks in the same game. It's happened just 16 times over the past 30 years.
8. This would be the time to say this was the first time in history that two Wild players scored hat tricks... and it is... but it almost wasn't. In Game 2 of Minnesota's 2022 series against the St. Louis Blues, hats hit the ice twice for the home team, though an offside review negated a goal from counting. Those two players? Kirill Kaprizov (three goals) and Joel Eriksson Ek (two goals, the overturned third).
9. Eriksson Ek and Kirill Kaprizov now have as many six-point games in their careers as:
- Gordie Howe
- Joe Sakic
- Leon Draisaitl
- Patrick Kane
- Nikita Kucherov
- Johnny Gaudreau
- Mike Modano
- Stan Mikita
- Jean Beliveau
And one more than:
- Alex Ovechkin
- Joe Thornton
- Steven Stamkos
- Evgeni Malkin
- Teemu Selanne
- Adam Oates
- Sergei Fedorov
- About 7,000 other dudes
10. As for two players scoring six points or more for the same team in the same game? This was the 28th time in history that happened. The last time that occurred? October 9, 1993, when Wayne Gretzky and Tomas Sandstrom did it for the Los Angeles Kings. Repeating this: Eriksson Ek and Kaprizov just did something for the first time since Wayne Goddamn Gretzky.
It gets even nuttier. What about games where multiple teammates got hat tricks and six points? That happened just four times in NHL history before yesterday. Two from Gretzky and his Edmonton Oilers, and the two others coming from Peter and Anton Stastny's Quebec Nordiques. All four games occurred from 1981 to 1983.
Outside of a three-season stretch with more scoring than almost any other era in league history, it just happened once: To the Minnesota Wild. On Monday.
We've never seen this in the State of Hockey before, and it's going to be a long time until we'll get to see another game this nutty.
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