Dany Heatley scored a power-play goal and Kyle Clutterbuck added a short-handed empty-netter with 10.2 seconds left for Minnesota in the opener of a five-game trip. Matt Cullen added three assists for Minnesota against his former club, and Josh Harding made 24 saves.
The victory put the Wild atop the overall NHL standings with 37 points under rookie coach Mike Yeo. They are off to their best start in the franchise’s 11-year history at 17-7-3, and have won four straight and nine of 11 — a stretch that began with a 3-2 win over the Ducks on Nov. 13 at Anaheim.
Anaheim is 0-2 since recently deposed Washington coach Bruce Boudreau replaced Randy Carlyle behind the bench. The Ducks, who have won just three of their last 21 games, squandered a 2-0 lead just two nights after blowing a 3-0 advantage in Boudreau’s debut — a 4-3 overtime loss to Philadelphia.
Ryan Getzlaf, Saku Koivu and Cam Fowler scored for Anaheim and Jonas Hiller made 31 saves in his 200th regular-season game. Teemu Selanne appeared in his 800th regular-season game with the club.
In Denver, Ryan O’Reilly had two goals, Semyon Varlamov made 27 saves and Colorado beat Detroit to end the Red Wings’ winning streak at seven games.
Paul Stastny and T.J. Galiardi also scored, and Gabriel Landeskog added two assists to help Colorado win its third straight. Henrik Zetterberg and Johan Franzen scored for Detroit, and Ty Conklin made 31 saves.
Galiardi got the winner while Colorado killed off Ryan Wilson’s minor penalty. Landeskog carried the puck into the Detroit zone, dropped it to the trailing Galiardi and he beat Conklin with a slap shot from the top of the circle with 10:38 left. It was Colorado’s fourth short-handed goal of the season.
Detroit pulled Conklin for an extra skater with a minute left and O’Reilly scored into the empty net with 34 seconds left.
In Vancouver, British Columbia, Roberto Luongo made 21 saves, Chris Higgins and David Booth each had a goal and two assists and Vancouver beat Calgary for its sixth victory in seven games.
Daniel Sedin and Kevin Bieksa had power-play goals and Jannik Hansen also scored to help Vancouver rebound from a 6-5 home loss to Nashville on Thursday night.
Alex Tanguay scored for Calgary, coming off a 5-3 victory in Edmonton on Saturday night.
