In St Paul, the Wild’s faint flickering fantasies of a playoff position were kept alive, for now, on Sunday in a 4-3 win over the visiting San Jose Sharks. 
Kirill Kaprizov hit for a hat trick in the win, his third of the campaign.
“Good passes from guys,” Kaprizov said.
Kaprizov collected his hats at 16:01 of the third period when he scored to give the Wild a 4-3 lead they protected for the win.
Filip Gustavsson made 12 saves in the win.
The Wild moved to 29-27-6, snapping a three-game skid.
“I think you always need the guys that play the most minutes and you count on in a lot of key situations to be able to drive your team and not only produce, but I think play the game the right way that I think inspires your team and drags people into the battle,” Minnesota coach John Hynes said. “I think those guys have done a good job of that. Tonight I thought … you’re coming into a back-to-back, you need those guys to be able to step up and drive things, and I thought Kirill and a few other guys did a really good job tonight.”
Following a scoreless opening stanza, the Sharks broke out to a 2-0 lead.
Mikael Granlund hit off the power play with 22 seconds gone in the middle frame for a 1-0 lead to San Jose.
Nico Sturm pushed the advantage to 2-0 at 4:56, scoring off a turnover.
“We didn’t have a lot of energy today,” Sturm said. “I think you could see that. Our forecheck wasn’t as effective as last night (in a 3-2 shootout loss at the Dallas Stars), which is normal. It’s the NHL. You play a tough back-to-back, but I thought for the most part we played extremely well today. We managed the game because we knew we weren’t at our best energywise today.
Kaprizov picked up his first of the game 7:01 of the second for a 2-2 tie, scoring off a breakaway.
The Sharks dropped to 15-39-6 off their seventh straight loss.
“Well, when you don’t have it, you got to find a way to hang around. I thought that’s what we did. We hung around, we battled. I thought the third period was probably our best period of the night,” San Jose coach David Quinn said. “I thought we kind of got ourselves together, spent a little more time in the [offensive] zone, and we just battled, and it was just unfortunate, you know? They got Kaprizov and we don’t. I mean, that really was the difference in the game tonight. He scores goals that a lot of guys can’t score in this league.”
San Jose reclaimed the lead, 3-2, when Anthony Duclair struck with just 32 seconds gone in the third period.
Kaprizov hit for his double at 2:38 of the third to knot the game, 3-3.
Kaapo Kahkonen made 28 saves in the loss.
“We battled, but they have a couple of good players over there, and they won the game for them tonight,” Kahkonen said.
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