Minnesota beat San Jose 4-1, extended its point streak to seven games and became the fastest NHL franchise to reach 1,000 regular-season victories

ST. PAUL, Minn. — NHL SPORTS – Kirill Kaprizov scored his NHL-leading 16th goal and added three assists as the Minnesota Wild defeated the San Jose Sharks 4-1 Friday at Grand Casino Arena.

The win was the 1,000th regular-season victory in Wild history. Minnesota reached the mark in 1,995 games, the fastest any NHL franchise has done so. The Wild improved to 12-3-3 and entered Saturday with 27 points, the best total in the Western Conference.

Top players control the game

Kaprizov opened the scoring on a two-man advantage at 7:55 of the first period, finishing a cross-ice pass from Quinn Hughes. Macklin Celebrini tied the game for San Jose in the second, but Maxim Shabanov restored Minnesota’s lead with another power-play goal just over two minutes later.

Hughes made it 3-1 in the third after moving across the offensive zone and beating Yaroslav Askarov with a wrist shot. Zach Bogosian added his first goal of the season, with Kaprizov collecting the secondary assist for his fourth point of the night.

Hughes finished with a goal and two assists. His performance gave him 100 career multi-assist games in 525 appearances, the fourth-fastest pace by a defenceman in NHL history behind Bobby Orr, Paul Coffey and Denis Potvin.

Minnesota keeps rolling

Jesper Wallstedt made 23 saves for the Wild. Minnesota has won three straight and is 6-0-1 in its past seven games. Kaprizov and Hughes each extended a point streak to seven games, while the Wild improved to 10-1-1 when Kaprizov scores this season.

San Jose has lost four straight and six of seven. Celebrini’s second-period deflection was his seventh goal of the season, but the Sharks could not turn a more competitive effort into a result two days after a 7-2 loss in Los Angeles.

What it means

The milestone matters, but Minnesota’s current form is the bigger story. The Wild are getting elite production from Kaprizov and Hughes, strong goaltending from Wallstedt and special-teams scoring that can break open close games.

Minnesota hosts Tampa Bay on Saturday in the second half of a back-to-back. Forward Michael McCarron left Friday’s game with an undisclosed injury and was considered questionable for that matchup.