In Raleigh, Kirill Kaprizov hit for a hat trick on Sunday to lead the Minnesota Wild to a 5-2 win over the Hurricanes. 
“Of course, when you score more goals, it’s easy to win,” Kaprizov said. “It doesn’t matter if it’s me or other guys [who] score goals too. It’s easy for us to play like this.”
Filip Gustavsson made 40 saves in the win.
The Wild improved to 20-21-5.
“It wasn’t perfect. You never play a perfect game,” Minnesota coach John Hynes said. “I think there’s lots of elements in the last two games that we want to see that give us a chance to win every night.”.
Carolina took a 1-0 lead at 14:02 of the opening stanza on a strike by Martin Necas.
Minnesota replied with Kaprizov’s first of the game at 17:42 of the first to tie it up at 1-1.
He picked up his double at 6:18 of the middle frame for a 2-1 lead to the Wild..
“I just tried shooting. Sometimes we have chances and don’t shoot on the net,” Kaprizov said. “I feel like Carolina always plays a pretty tight game and doesn’t give [a lot] of shots.”
The Hurricanes dropped to 25-15-5 off their second loss in three games.
“It’s a frustrating game when you lose like that,” Carolina coach Rod Brind’Amour said. “The first period was as good as you could do it. We needed to get more out of it. That’s how it goes sometimes.”
The game stayed at 2-1 until Michael Bunting scored at 8:12 of the third period to knot it up at 2-2.
“We weren’t great in the third, and then we tie it up,” Brind’Amour said. “We had a couple mental errors and they made you pay. Good for them, they did what they needed to do. We didn’t execute.”
The Wild reclaimed the lead when Joel Eriksson Ek added a marker at 17:59 of the third for a 3-2 advantage, and the game-winner.
Kaprizov gave the Wild some breathing room, and collected his hats with an empty-net strike at 17:59 to expand the lead to 4-2.
“That big tip got us going, [gave us] a little belief, and that was huge going into the second with a 1-1 game,” Minnesota’s Marcus Foligno said. “He’s playing great, and we have to start thinking about [taking] care of the defensive side and not just hope Kirill is going to get his looks.”
Jake Middleton sealed the win when he padded the lead with an empty net at 19:04 for the 5-2 final.
“We’re realizing what we need at this time of the year,” Foligno said. “All our star guys were getting down and bending one knee when Burns and those guys were shooting. It’s huge. It fires everyone up. It’s just winning hockey.”
Antti Raanta made 14 saves in the loss.
“They were selling out blocking shots, and their goalie played an unreal game,” the Hurricanes’ Sebastian Aho said. “Our third period wasn’t good enough, but other than that, I thought the way we played was really good. We just couldn’t finish.”
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