ST. PAUL, Minn. _ Make it a dozen for the Wild.
Thanks to the three fastest goals in franchise history in the second period and a double deflection off Erik Haula's two legs in the third period, the Wild rallied Thursday night to beat the New York Islanders, 6-4, for a 12th consecutive victory.
Just 467 miles north of Xcel Energy Center at the MTS Centre in Winnipeg, the Columbus Blue Jackets cooperated, too, by rallying to beat the Jets for a 14th consecutive victory.
The two wins set up a New Year's Eve clash of streaking 2000 expansion titans at Xcel Energy Center.
When the Blue Jackets square off with the Wild in St. Paul on Saturday, it'll mark the first NHL game in which each team enters play with a winning streak of at least seven games, according to the Elias Sports Bureau.
The wins by Minnesota and Columbus also mark the first time two NHL teams have concurrent single-season winning streaks of at least 12 games.
Trailing 2-1 in the second period, the Wild, who lead the NHL with a plus-22 middle-stanza goal differential, got tallies from Chris Stewart, Jared Spurgeon and Jordan Schroeder 1 minutes, 20 seconds apart to end Jaroslav Halak's night and stun a sold-out crowd, many of whom were mentally preparing to see the Wild's first regulation defeat since Nov. 29.
They'd think so again when 97 seconds into the third period, the Wild's 4-2 lead evaporated thanks to Warroad's Brock Nelson scoring a pair of 4-on-4 goals 42 seconds apart.
It was a rare off night for Devan Dubnyk, who not only saw his 10-game streak of two goals or less end, he gave up more than three goals for the first time this season.
But with 9:30 left in the third, former Islander Nino Niederreiter took a shot that caromed past J-F Berube off Haula's legs for the go-ahead and eventual winning goal. Mikael Granlund, who had seven shots, scored the Wild's league-leading 11th empty-net goal to seal the deal.
Dubnyk, without a regulation loss since Nov. 19, made 23 saves to extend his career-high and franchise-record winning streak to 10 games and his career-best point streak to 14 (12-0-2).
The Wild broke its franchise-record by picking up its 12th victory in a calendar month and tied a franchise record with an eighth consecutive home win.
Facing a scrappy Islanders team that was the only team in the NHL that has beaten the Wild by more than a goal this season, the Wild faced their first home deficit when Eden Prairie's Nick Leddy scored a power-play goal to break a 1-1 tie 6:15 into the second period.
But finally, after Jason Pominville continued a night of turnovers and soft wall play (he was checked off the puck en route to Jason Chimera's first-period tying goal), coach Bruce Boudreau demoted Pominville for the second game in a row to the fourth line and elevated Schroeder to the top line.
The rally happened soon after.
Pominville couldn't play a Ryan Suter pass and the puck slid right to Stewart at the side of the net for the tying goal, Stewart's fifth goal this month after two in the first six weeks.
Just 35 seconds later, Spurgeon scored his second goal in two games after Granlund's strong wall play in the corner got the puck up to Suter up top. Then, after Schroeder couldn't get a clean shot off on a breakaway, he slid into the corner, picked himself off the ice and was the recipient of Jonas Brodin's setup for a 4-2 lead.
But Erik Haula and Ryan Strome were each called for roughing at the 20-minute mark of the period. That resulted in a two-minute 4-on-4 to start the third period, and Nelson took advantage in a big way.
Nelson cut the deficit to 4-3 just 55 seconds into the period after a terrific defensive play by Matt Dumba at the wall, then made tied the score by the 1:37 mark for the fastest two goals by the same opponent at Xcel Energy Center in Wild history (42 seconds).
Marco Scandella, who had gone 61 games without a goal before scoring last Friday against the Rangers, made it two goals in three games when he finished off a beautiful saucer pass from Granlund 12:34 into the first period.
Granlund picked up his 12th point in 11 games.
But 91 seconds later, the game was tied when Chimera fired a rocket over Dubnyk's glove. The play began when Islanders defenseman Thomas Hickey checked Pominville off the puck behind his net. Hickey then led the puck and passed up to Andrew Ladd, who set up Chimera.
