Wild shut out Ducks, extend point streak to 8

Jon Merrill made it 2-0 at 1:56 with a wrist shot from just above the left circle through a screen by Marat Khusnutdinov, who was credited with the secondary assist, his first NHL point (third game).

“He’s so talented too, it’s fun to see,” Wild forward Frederick Gaudreau said. “I’m sure it’s weird at first, being new to everything, but he was good right off the bat, and he just keeps getting better, so it’s awesome to see.”

Kirill Kaprizov extended the lead to 3-0 at 11:50 when he scored on a power play after drawing a hooking penalty on Urho Vaakanainen.

“It wasn’t a bad first period by any means, but I just didn’t think we had a ton going on,” Minnesota coach John Hynes said. “Then a couple changes, and then we got off to a quick start in the second, and I think we were able to build the game the right way from there.”