Wild stays hot on West Coast to beat San Jose

SAN JOSE — Goals were in short supply for the Wild going into and coming out of the team’s COVID-19 shutdown.

Not so much anymore.

The offense continued to deliver, lifting the Wild over the Sharks 6-2 on Monday at SAP Center for the team’s third consecutive victory — a run in which the Wild has scored 14 times.

Marcus Foligno recorded the third Gordie Howe hat trick of his career, following up a firstperiod fight with a goal and assist, and the Kirill Kaprizov-Victor Rask-Mats Zuccarello line remained in-sync — combining for nine points after collecting five the previous game.

“We got four lines going right now,” Zuccarello said.

Other standouts included winger-turned-center Ryan Hartman, who assisted on two goals, and defenseman Ian Cole tallied his first goal with the Wild while also chipping in an assist.

Kaapo Kahkonen, who has been in net this entire win streak, racked up 31 saves.

This latest outburst by the offense, which has coincided with the Wild welcoming more regulars back to its lineup from the COVID-19 outbreak that stalled the season for six games, came in comeback mode.

Just 45 seconds into the first period, San Jose’s Brent Burns chipped the puck behind Jonas Brodin and went to his backhand to capitalize on the Sharks’ first shot on Kahkonen.

But then the Wild’s most dynamic line of late took over. Kaprizov and Rask set up Zuccarello for his second goal in as many games at 7:49 and then on the very next shift, Zuccarello found Kaprizov for a tap-in past San Jose goalie Martin Jones just 11 seconds later.

The goals tied the franchise record for the fastest two goals on the road, tying the pair of tallies by Mattias Weinhandl and Wes Walz on April 15, 2006, at Dallas.

Before the period let out, Foligno fought the Sharks’ Nikolai Knyzhov and actually motioned for the officials to break up the scrap after Knyzhov was bleeding by his left eye.