Minnesota Wild closing out red-hot scoring month

The Minnesota Wild have been the NHL’s highest-scoring team in November.

Minnesota enters the final day of the month with 54 goals in 13 games, five more than the Colorado Avalanche. True, Colorado’s output of 49 goals has come in three fewer contests and the Avalanche have averaged 4.90 goals per game in November.

But, the Wild have been nearly as proficient this month with the average of 4.15 which is about a 51% increase over the 2.75 goals per game Minnesota averaged in October.

Minnesota, which beat Tampa Bay  4-2 on Sunday, has 29 goals over its last six games and has averaged 3.62 goals per game this season to rank fourth overall in the NHL and also third in the Western Conference behind league-leading Colorado (4.00) and the No. 2 Edmonton Oilers (3.75).

The Wild finished fifth in the league last year (3.32) and was eighth in 2019-20 (3.25).

The play of Kirill Kaprizov is one reason for the team’s recent offensive boost.

The reigning Calder Trophy recipient has six goals and 17 points this month to rank seventh overall in the league for November production. Three goals and 12 points have come over the last two weeks, the latter tying Colorado’s Cale Makar  and Washington’s John Carlson for second-most in the league over that stretch.

Kaprizov, had an assist on Ryan Hartman’s go-ahead goal in the third period on Sunday afternoon — Hartman’s  team-leading 12th of the season . Kaprizov has points in five of his past six games and has also hit multiple points three times over that stretch.

It shows that Kaprizov is starting to heat up after he got off to a slow start to the season with no goals and six assists in October.  Kaprizov has had four points in a game twice in a roughly week span  — a 7-2 win over Dallas on Nov. 18 and a 7-1  victory over Winnipeg on Nov. 26. Both games were at the Xcel Energy Center.

“I think it’s what other teams are doing. They’re all going to him and he’s such a good player. He can’t get free because there’s not only one, two people coming,” Wild coach Dean Evason said of Kaprizov after the win over Winnipeg . “He understands and recognizes the opening might not be there for him but maybe that’s why he’s getting other people those opportunities because they’re all concentrated on him.”

Minnesota defenseman Alex Goligoski and forward Mats Zuccarello both have seven points over that stretch as well and Goligoski has a plus/minus rating of +10 over the past seven games. That puts him second in that category since Nov. 1, just one behind Colorado’s Mikko Rantanen.

Kaprizov leads the Wild with 23 points but 19 other Wild players have at least goal so far this season and 23 players overall have at least a point.

“It’s not one or two guys scoring,” Evason said after the Jets game. “Lots has been made of guys that don’t score on our team but not a lot’s made of our depth.”