Panarin, Atkinson score to help Blue Jackets top Wild

COLUMBUS --Riley Nash scored his first goal for the Columbus Blue Jackets and had an assist in a 4-2 win against the Minnesota Wild at Nationwide Arena on Thursday.

Markus Hannikainen, Cam Atkinson and Artemi Panarin scored, Pierre-Luc Dubois had two assists and Sergei Bobrovsky made 23 saves for Columbus (15-8-2), which is 8-2-1 in its past 11 games.
WATCH: [All Wild vs. Blue Jackets highlights]
"We (Hannikainen and Lukas Sedlak) played with a lot of energy early and got a lot of good shifts in," Nash said. "It's nice to be able to have that spring in your step where things are going right and use that to your advantage."
Mikael Granlund and Zach Parise scored for Minnesota (14-9-2), which has lost two straight. Devan Dubnyk made 25 saves.

"We've got to play with emotion," Wild forward Marcus Foligno said. "Puck management is a big part of it. We've got to play defensive. It sounds boring but that leads to a lot of scoring. We had a lot of chances, 2-on-1s."
Granlund used a screen by Foligno to give the Wild a 1-0 lead at 7:46 of the first period on a slap shot from the high slot.
Hannikainen tied it 1-1 at 13:18, scoring on a rebound after Nash's initial shot hit a skate in front.
"We had chances in the first (period) to get a couple more goals," Wild forward Jason Zucker said. "It was an unfortunate bounce on their first goal to give them kind of a backdoor empty-netter."

Atkinson made it 2-1 at 1:05 of the second period on a one-timer from the right circle on a power play. He has 15 points (10 goals, five assists) during a nine-game point streak, which is tied for the longest in his NHL career.
Nash, who signed with Columbus as a free agent on July 1, extended the lead to 3-1 at 4:34, scoring on a deflection in the slot off Zach Werenski's initial shot. The goal was his first since March 19 (30 games) when he scored for the Boston Bruins against the Blue Jackets.
"You want to see him get rewarded," Blue Jackets coach John Tortorella said. "It will loosen him up a little bit. I hope it will relax him an allow him to play quicker."
Panarin made it 4-1 at 11:24, taking a pass from Dubois and beating Dubnyk glove side from the left circle. He has scored in consecutive games after going the previous 12 without a goal.
Panarin had 11 shifts of at least one minute, including one shift in the third period lasting 2:10, and finished the game with 22:14 of ice time on 22 shifts.

"We've got to be really careful with that because other players are ready to go," Tortorella said. "We have some good players behind him so it's a constant conversation we have."
Parise cut it to 4-2 at 12:06 on a wraparound at the left post. He has six points (five goals, one assist) in a six-game point streak.

They said it

"Soft, probably. We can be a [heck] of a lot better, that's for sure. We can be a hard working team, we battle, and I don't know if we've been doing enough of that lately." -- Wild forward Jason Zucker
"This year we've got a lot of depth scoring. Look at tonight. We got two goals from our fourth line (Markus Hannikainen and Riley Nash). Our scoring has been spread out all through the lineup." -- Blue Jackets defenseman Zach Werenski

Need to know

Wild defenseman Matt Dumba had his seven-game point streak end, which was tied with Ryan Suter for the longest point streak by a defenseman in Wild history. … Tortorella coached his 1,200th NHL regular-season game. He is the 18th coach in League history and the fifth active to reach that mark. He is 590-470-103 (37 ties), including 144-95-25 in four seasons with Columbus. … Atkinson is one point shy of his 300th in the NHL.

What's next

Wild:Host the Toronto Maple Leafs on Saturday (7 p.m. ET; CBC, SN1, FS-N+, NHL.TV)
Blue Jackets: At the New York Islanders on Saturday (Nassau Coliseum; 7 p.m. ET; MSG+, FS-O, NHL.TV)