Wild fends off Carolina's rally to win 3-2 at Xcel Energy Center

The Wild reignited its offense and rebounded from an uncharacteristic off night in its return from the All-Star break.

In the process, the team proved its seat in the standings among the best in the NHL isn't a fluke.

That's the confirmation that comes with taking down a Stanley Cup contender, which the Wild accomplished by holding off the Hurricanes 3-2 on Saturday night at Xcel Energy Center for its seventh victory in eight games.

At home, the Wild is on a 12-game point streak after winning 11 in that span.

"If they're contenders, so are we," Kevin Fiala said. "That's what we feel like."

Cam Talbot got in the way of 37 shots, while Fiala, Kirill Kaprizov and Frederick Gaudreau supplied the goals, with Fiala and Gaudreau also adding an assist. Andrei Svechnikov had both Carolina goals.

With the victory, the Wild leapfrogged Nashville and into second place in the Central Division and Western Conference. It trails first-place Colorado by nine points with two games in hand.

"It just continues to grow our confidence, to know that we can hang in there with one of the best teams in the league and come out on top," said Talbot, who has a 1.36 goals-against average and .955 save percentage in his past four starts while going undefeated. "They were relentless all over the ice tonight. We bent, but we didn't break."

Fiala ended the scoreless stalemate 10 minutes, 14 seconds into the second period with his 10th goal over his past 14 games and 14th overall this season.

After collecting a Gaudreau centering attempt that caromed off traffic, Fiala veered to the outside and wired a shot just under the crossbar and by Hurricanes goalie Frederik Andersen. Of his 36 points, which are third on the team, Fiala has 18 over his past 14 games.

"They were the best line from start to finish," coach Dean Evason said.

BOXSCORE: Wild 3, Carolina 2

In the third, Kaprizov doubled the Wild's lead at 1:16 when he split two defenders and buried his own rebound after Andersen made the initial save.

That was Kaprizov's team-leading 20th goal and 22nd point over his past 13 contests. Among players to debut with the Wild, he's the first to begin his career with consecutive 20-goal seasons. Zuccarello's assist on the play was his third point in as many games and 15th helper over his last 13.

Only 1:18 later, Gaudreau wristed in a pass from linemate Fiala for his sixth point in his last six games.Fiala has four multipoint efforts over his past six games, 10 this season.

"As the game went on, I felt like we were better and better," Fiala said of his line, which also includes rookie Matt Boldy. "After our first goal there, we kept going, had great looks and kept working on pucks."

This was the 13th time over the Wild's previous 14 games the team has racked up at least three goals.

The lone glitch in that batch came Tuesday in the Wild's first game back from the All-Star break, a 2-0 loss at Winnipeg that snapped a six-game win streak and marked the Wild's first shutout loss.

But the team's offense recalibrated, and needed all three of those goals to stave off a late Hurricanes rally.

Svechnikov capitalized at 5:02 of the third on a stealthy shot from the slot that spoiled Talbot's bid at back-to-back shutouts. Then, 1:21 later, Svechnikov scored again, on a one-timer on the power play.

"I hope that we know that we can play with one of the best teams in the league," Evason said. "It's reinforcement for us that if we play the right way — but we didn't at the start — but once we got to our game and we played like them, we were real good."