Quinn Hughes and Michael McCarron scored in the first six minutes and the Minnesota Wild pulled away for a 5-1 win over the Washington Capitals on Sunday afternoon in Washington, D.C.
Maxim Shabanov, Kirill Kaprizov and Danila Yurov also scored for Minnesota. Joel Eriksson Ek and Bobby Brink notched two assists apiece.
Justin Sourdif scored the lone goal for the Capitals, whose three-game winning streak ended.
Wild goaltender Jesper Wallstedt stopped 26 of 27 shots in the victory. Capitals goaltender Logan Thompson allowed four goals on 28 shots.
Minnesota opened the scoring 3:42 into the first period. Hughes handled the puck at the top of the right circle, skated toward the high slot and unleashed a wrist shot through traffic that beat Thompson.
Less than two minutes later, the Wild struck again. McCarron scored on a slap shot with Blake Coleman and Brink tallying assists.
The Capitals trimmed the deficit to 2-1 with six seconds left in the second period. Cole Hutson fired a long-range shot from near the blue line that Sourdif redirected between Wallstedt’s pads for the goal.
A high-sticking penalty against Capitals forward Tom Wilson opened the door for the Wild to grab a 3-1 lead late in the third period.
Eriksson Ek won a faceoff on the power play and shuffled a backhand pass to Maxim Shabanov, who quickly fired a wrist shot from the slot. The shot beat Thompson on his glove side to put the Wild on top by two goals at 17:37.
Kaprizov boosted the Wild’s lead to 4-1 with an empty-net goal with 57 seconds to go. He scored his league-leading 15th goal of the season on a one-timer off a Matt Boldy pass.
Wilson lost his temper after the goal, cross-checked Minnesota’s Zach Bogosian and jumped on top of him. He drew another two-minute penalty along with a game misconduct.
Yurov finished the scoring with a one-timer with 24.9 seconds left.