All smiles as Wild rout Boston in Quinn Hughes’ debut

If there were any doubt that things are different now for the Minnesota Wild the minute-long ovation following Quinn Hughes first goal in green and red erased those notions Hughes acquired Friday in the biggest in-season bargain in franchise history scored the fourth goal in Minnesota s - rout of the Boston Bruins on Sunday evening at Grand Casino Arena stretching the Wild s winning streak to four games Kirill Kaprizov scored twice while Jared Spurgeon Ryan Hartman and Matt Boldy added goals for the Wild They got a -save performance from goalie Filip Gustavsson who improved to - - this season But fans came to see the new guy on the blue line wearing No and Hughes did not disappoint With the Wild already up by three his wrist shot from the top of the left circle in the opening minute of the third period fooled Bruins goalie Jeremy Swayman between the knees It was Hughes third goal of the season and the first of his career without a Vancouver Canucks jersey on The goal sent the already raucous crowd into a frenzy that lasted a full minute nearly drowning out the goal announcement over the constituents address system Outshot early the Wild got the championship s first power play and the first lead when Spurgeon s shot from the blue line made its way through a crowd in front of Swayman It was the second goal of the season for the Minnesota captain and their second man-advantage goal in as a great number of games Minnesota s penalty killers who had been uncharacteristically porous one day earlier versus Ottawa negated Boston s first power play as Gustavsson had seven saves in the first period The Bruins got another power play early in the middle frame and again Gustavsson was the group s best penalty killer smothering a point-blank shot by Boston center Pavel Zacha from the top of the crease The Wild went up by two via a series of fortunate events when a long-range blast by Matt Boldy deflected off a Bruin s skate and went wide of the net But the puck caromed hard off the end boards and slipped right to the side of the net where Kaprizov was waiting to whack the puck off the far goalpost and in Hartman made it - on the Wild s second power play of the event scoring his second goal in as plenty of games by finishing off a -on- rush with Brock Faber With the Wild in complete control Alex Steeves ruined Gustavsson s bid for a shutout scoring in the latter half of the third Andrew Peeke scored Boston s other goal in the final second of the challenge The win may have come at a cost for the Wild as second-line forward Marcus Johansson left in the second period with an apparent lower body injury and did not return Johansson came into the championship third on the gang in goals with Swayman had saves for Boston which came to Minnesota on a four-game win streak The Wild make their only trip to Boston on March for their rematch with the Bruins The Wild have a day off before concluding their four-game homestand on Tuesday when the Washington Capitals make their only visit to St Paul this season The teams played in Washington back in October with the Capitals prevailing - Briefly There was a polite round of applause during a timeout in the first period when Bruins center Marat Khusnutdinov was shown on the arena s video screen with a welcome back message A second round pick by the Wild in the draft Khusnutdinov had points in games for Minnesota He was sent to Boston last March in the transaction that brought Justin Brazeau to the Wild for a brief stint Kaprizov admitted that he and Khusnutdinov were out for a drive in the Twin Cities on Friday night when word of the Hughes business came down