NEW YORK _ Stop if you've heard this before: The Wild won again.
In what has become old, everyday news at this point, the Wild strutted into Madison Square Garden on Friday night and steamrolled the New York Rangers, 7-4, for their franchise-record 10th consecutive victory.
One night after Bruce Boudreau said after his confident bunch beat Montreal that tying franchise records is like kissing one's sister, the Wild also improved to 10-0-1 in the month of December to break the franchise-record point streak.
The Wild broke a team road record by scoring five goals in the second period and also got multiple-point games from six different players. It was quite a way to catapult into the NHL's three-day holiday hiatus. The Wild will next convene at the Minneapolis airport Tuesday morning for a flight to Nashville and an attempt to make it 11 in a row that night.
Mikko Koivu, Nino Niederreiter and Marco Scandella scored on three of the Wild's first four second-period shots to end Henrik Lundqvist's night less than five minutes into the period.
Jason Zucker and Matt Dumba also scored in the period after Mikael Granlund scored in the first.
Charlie Coyle had a career-high three assists and four points, Koivu and Zucker also had three points each, Granlund and Niederreiter each had two points and Eric Staal had two assists.
In the milestone game for the Wild, Darcy Kuemper got the nod over Devan Dubnyk.
Sure, Dubnyk was riding an eight-game win streak and 12-game point streak, but the Wild played the night before in Montreal and didn't roll into their hotel until 2 a.m. Dubnyk got a mental break after the much-hyped Dubnyk vs. Carey Price Show, plus, Kuemper was coming off a solid outing his last start. He made 31 saves for his fourth win and had to be good in the third when the tired Wild were hanging on for dear life in the third period. The Wild's only shot of the period was on a Coyle empty-netter.
It's the fourth winning streak of 10 or more games in Boudreau's career. The Wild, the best defensive team in the NHL, have outscored opponents 36-15 during their 10-game winning streak (29-10 in the past seven games).
Chris Kreider gave the Rangers an early lead after Kuemper turned the puck over to Derek Stepan. A tic-tac-toe later, and Kreider fired through Nate Prosser's screen.
But for the second night in a row, the Wild battled back. After a Koivu faceoff win, Zucker, coming off a two-point night in Montreal, got the puck to Granlund and drove the net. Granlund simply turned and shot and beat Lundqvist on a goal the veteran would love to have had back.
It would be a sign of things to come for King Hank.
Koivu and Niederreiter scored 18 seconds apart in the first minute of the second. Zucker fed Koivu alone at the side of the net for a beautiful one-timer, then Niederreiter backhanded Coyle's rebound between Lundqvist's wickets.
Rangers captain Ryan McDonagh cut the deficit on a shot that deflected past Kuemper off Jason Pominville's stick, but the Wild got the lead back when Scandella stepped into a Coyle carom off the boards for his first goal in 62 games dating to Jan. 7.
That ended Lundqvist's night 4:55 into the second. He gave up four goals on 13 shots.
The Zucker-Koivu-Granlund line that has been so good during the winning streak converted again when Granlund forced a turnover, centered himself and tried to hit Zucker in front. The puck hit a Rangers defender and Zucker popped in the rebound for his eighth goals.
Granlund has 11 points in the past nine games. Zucker has 15 points in the past 15 games and Koivu 15 points in the past 16 games.
Dumba scored a power-play goal off Coyle's rebound, but Stepan cut the deficit to 6-3 in the final minute of the period with his third point of the night.
