Wild handle New Jersey in 5-2 win

In St Paul, Kirill Kaprizov struck for two goals and three points for the Minnesota Wild in a 5-2 win over the New Jersey Devils on Thursday night.

“To be honest, I didn’t change much. I’ve kept the same mental attitude,” Kaprizov said. “I’ve said it before in some of the other interviews when I wasn’t scoring, I didn’t want to change anything, I wanted to stick to my game, and that’s what I’ve done. Obviously, it’s just going in now, and that’s the difference.”

Kaapo Kahkonen made 29 saves in the Wild win.

Minnesota improved to 16-6-1.

Ryan Graves and Tomas Tatar were the New Jersey strikers.

“We got smoked on the compete, there’s no doubt,” New Jersey head coach Lindy Ruff said. “First goal, went around us. Net front, we got beat. They won the compete game, there’s no doubt.”

New Jersey dropped to 9-8-4.

Kaprizov and Rem Pitlick gave the Wild a 3-0 lead.

After Graves made it 3-1, Dmitry Kulikov scored for Minnesota to restore the three-goal lead.

“We had a little bit of life, and then we give up the next one,” Graves said. “I think we just have to do a better job of managing the game.”

Ryan Hartman scored late in the third period for the 5-2 final.

“We’re having a great time, but we’re playing the right way and that’s why it’s happening,” Hartman said. “We’re playing underneath the puck. We’re playing smart defensively. There’s some times where we lose our high forward in the offensive zone and they go for rushes. [The Devils] probably had a few too many odd-man rushes tonight, but we’ve got [Kahkonen] back there who saved us a lot. But overall, the way we’ve been playing is how we want to play, and we’re getting off to leads which is a nice change.”