ANAHEIM, Calif. – 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.
After a quartet of assists on Friday to spur the Wild’s 5-2 win over the Ducks, Hughes looks to be right on schedule after 10 games in red and green.
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.
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.
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.
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.
The Ducks had Minnesota pinned in its own zone, dangerously, for much of the game’s 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.
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.
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.
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’s Chris Kreider with the Ducks on a 3-on-1 rush to the net.
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’s right skate and into the net.
Sennecke atoned for his transgressions by getting the Ducks on the board off a faceoff play, putting a high shot off Gustavsson’s shoulder and in, but the Wild answered quickly, when Trenin answered just 59 seconds later, after a set-up pass by Hughes.
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.
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.
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.
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