Greenway scores twice, Wild defeat Sharks for eighth win in row

SAN JOSE --The Minnesota Wild extended their winning streak to eight games with a 5-2 victory against the San Jose Sharks at SAP Center on Thursday.

"It's just a huge credit to the room, their preparation for the game," Wild coach Dean Evason said. "We're happy the way that we're conducting ourselves in the right way."
Jordan Greenway scored twice, and Kevin Fiala, Joel Eriksson Ek and Kirill Kaprizov each had a goal and an assist for the Wild (19-6-1). Cam Talbot made 33 saves for his NHL-leading 15th win.
"Inside our room, we want to be on top of the league and, right now, I think we are," Fiala said. "It's still early, so we just have to keep it going."

Jonathan Dahlen and Tomas Hertl each had a goal and an assist, and Adin Hill made 22 saves for the Sharks (14-12-1), who have lost three of their past four.
"It wasn't a great game," Hertl said. "I don't think we had our legs tonight. If you don't have your legs you have to find a way, play simple hockey and don't turn over pucks."
Fiala scored his first goal in eight games to make it 1-0 at 6:22 of the first period. Hill did not recover in time from stopping a shot through traffic by Jon Merrill, and Fiala scored on the rebound.
"On that first goal, we didn't get inside at the net and that's one of the things we talked about in our scouting report on [Minnesota]," Sharks coach Bob Boughner said. "They're heavy around the offensive net and around the blue [paint] and you've got to get inside. You've got to be underneath their sticks and we weren't."
Eriksson Ek made it 2-0 with a power-play goal at 7:04 of the second period when he redirected a shot from Mats Zuccarello. Kaprizov had the secondary assist to extend his point streak to seven games (five goals, nine assists).
Greenway scored another on the power play at 15:20 with a wrist shot off of the rush to extend the lead to 3-0.
"I haven't been on the power play a ton, so it's good, first to have the coaches trust me to be out there, and then take advantage of the opportunity like that," Greenway said.

Dahlen made it 3-1 at 3:29 of the third period when he tipped in a point shot from Erik Karlsson off a face-off, and Hertl cut it to 3-2 with a power-play goal at 13:26.
"I was proud of our guys for battling back," Boughner said. "I don't think we had our best legs in the first two periods, but we found another gear in the third."
Greenway scored into an empty net at 18:12 to make it 4-2 before Kaprizov added another empty-net goal 32 seconds later for the 5-2 final.
"We know as much as anybody that teams aren't going to quit," Evason said. "They're just going to keep coming, and certainly at the end of the game [San Jose] did. It's a great league and teams are real good. We liked a lot of things we did in this hockey game defensively and we'll take that going forward."
NOTES: Minnesota is in first in the NHL standings for the first time since Dec. 18, 2011. … Kaprizov is one game away from tying Jim Dowd's franchise record (2001-02). … Eriksson Ek has six points (two goals, four assists) during a three-game point streak. … Dahlen is second among NHL rookies in goals (eight), behind Detroit Red Wings forward Lucas Raymond (10).