ANAHEIM, Calif. \u2013 When he came to the Wild in a blockbuster trade last month, playmaking defenseman Quinn Hughes asked for patience, saying that it might take him 10 or 20 games to get on the same page with the new Minnesota teammates.<\/p>\n
After a quartet of assists on Friday to spur the Wild\u2019s 5-2 win over the Ducks, Hughes looks to be right on schedule after 10 games in red and green.<\/p>\n
Hughes set up two goals by Danila Yurov and single goals from Kirill Kaprizov and Yakov Trenin, as the Wild opened 2026 on a triumphant note, improving to 3-0-1 on their season-long seven-game road trip. Filip Gustavsson had 26 saves for Minnesota, improving to 14-8-4.<\/p>\n
\u201cI just think you\u2019re a little bit passive at the start. You want to fit in. You\u2019re gonna know everyone, and coming to the fourth- or third-best team in the league, you know it\u2019s not about you,\u201d Hughes said of his arrival in Minnesota. \u201cBut at a certain point, they also traded a lot for me, so you\u2019ve got to be yourself and just finding that fine line. I think that I\u2019m just shooting the puck a little bit more today and not being as passive.\u201d<\/p>\n
The four assists puts Hughes at 11 points in the 10 games with the Wild since he arrived from Vancouver in a Dec. 12 trade. His four-assist game was the first by a defenseman in franchise history.<\/p>\n
Nico Sturm added a goal with just under five minutes to play, putting the Wild up by four, before Anaheim scored a face-saving goal with 2:33 to play. But the night belonged to Hughes.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe\u2019s one of those dynamic offensive players. I think you saw tonight. He helps you in so many ways, from breakouts to transition to rush plays,\u201d Wild coach John Hynes said. \u201cAnd then his vision in the offensive zone. I thought tonight he did a really good job.\u201d<\/p>\n
The Wild, which beat Anaheim 2-0 in St. Paul in November, won its season series with the Ducks. They play one more time, in St. Paul, on April 14 to close the regular season.<\/p>\n
The Ducks had Minnesota pinned in its own zone, dangerously, for much of the game\u2019s first five minutes. Then Anaheim top-liner Alex Killorn was whistled for tripping Matt Boldy, and the Wild power play needed just nine seconds to give the visitors the lead.<\/p>\n
With a scramble of bodies creating havoc near the Anaheim crease, Kaprizov slapped in a loose puck for his 24th goal of the season. It was the 27th time in 42 games that the Wild have scored first. Only Washington, with 29, has scored the first goal more often.<\/p>\n
Just a few shifts later, Killorn left the rink after a loose puck struck him in the face and he crumpled in the corner to the left of Gustavsson. While arena staff cleaned a notable pool of blood off the ice, officials reviewed the video but announced there was no penalty on the play. He returned in the second period.<\/p>\n
Gustavsson, who was named to Team Sweden for the Winter Olympics earlier in the day, preserved the Wild lead midway through the first, making a sliding blocked save on Anaheim\u2019s Chris Kreider with the Ducks on a 3-on-1 rush to the net.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe were switching a lot of chances there early,\u201d Gustavsson said. \u201cHe came over and kind of showed a little bit that he was going to pass it, so I could kind of follow him pretty good and I didn\u2019t have to stretch out too much.\u201d<\/p>\n
Minnesota got a pair of power plays early in the middle frame when Ducks winger Beckett Sennecke made two trips to the penalty box, and the Wild posted the first 10 consecutive shots of the period, without scoring. Then they doubled their lead essentially by accident. A blast from the blue line by Quinn Hughes deflected off the waist-high stick of Trenin, then glanced off Yurov\u2019s right skate and into the net.<\/p>\n
Sennecke atoned for his transgressions by getting the Ducks on the board off a faceoff play, putting a high shot off Gustavsson\u2019s shoulder and in, but the Wild answered quickly, when Trenin answered just 59 seconds later, after a set-up pass by Hughes.<\/p>\n
\u201cI had my legs, and I had my parents in the stands,\u201d said Trenin. \u201cThis was my first goal in front of my mom, so it\u2019s special.\u201d<\/p>\n
Yurov tipped a long-range Hughes shot early in the third to put the Wild up by three, and give the Russian rookie the first multi-goal game of his career.<\/p>\n
Lukas Dostal, making his seventh consecutive start for Anaheim, had 29 saves in the loss. The Ducks have now lost seven of their last eight.<\/p>\n
The Wild, now past the midway point of their seven-game road trip, stay in Southern California for two more, visiting the Los Angeles Kings on Saturday and Monday.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"ANAHEIM, Calif. \u2013 When he came to the Wild in a blockbuster trade last month, playmaking defenseman Quinn…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":118697,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[36],"tags":[163,165,164,4227,404,127],"class_list":{"0":"post-118696","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-anaheim","8":"tag-anaheim","9":"tag-anaheim-headlines","10":"tag-anaheim-news","11":"tag-minnesota-wild","12":"tag-nhl","13":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/118696","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=118696"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/118696\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/118697"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=118696"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=118696"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=118696"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}