Wild fend off Capitals 5-3 to win third in a row

Marcus Foligno played baseball when he was younger and figures if he didn’t leave the United States, he’d be a baseball player.

“I moved to Canada,” Foligno said, “and there’s not much going on there except hockey.”

Foligno hasn’t lost all his baseball skills.

He leapt to catch a pop fly in the crease, grabbing a deflected Matt Boldy shot before dropping the puck to his feet and jamming it into the net for an appropriate ode to Joe Mauer on the same day the St. Paul native and Twins legend became a first-ballot Hall of Famer.

“That’s actually really cool,” said Foligno, a Twins fan. “We were talking about that this morning, about how he might be picked up for the Hall of Fame, and we saw that he was and, yeah, that was perfect. A little baseball move.”

But that wasn’t the only highlight in the Wild’s 5-3 dismissal of the Capitals on Tuesday at Xcel Energy Center that extended their win streak to three, their longest since a four-game run Dec. 19-27.

Brock Faber had a record-breaking night, Joel Eriksson Ek reached his own milestone and Marcus Johansson scored twice. Goaltender Filip Gustavsson stopped 30 shots after a 40-save victory Sunday at Carolina.

Since taking over for the injured Marc-Andre Fleury last Friday in Florida, Gustavsson is 3-0.

Fleury remains sidelined with an upper-body injury after getting hit behind the net, but the Wild did get Frederick Gaudreau back after he sat out the previous two games with his own upper-body injury.

Fresh off that 5-2 win against the Hurricanes, the Wild started strong, with Faber capitalizing only 1 minute, 37 seconds after the opening faceoff.

He buried a Mats Zuccarello rebound that caromed off the end boards to record the longest point streak in franchise history by a rookie defenseman at five games; Faber has two goals and six assists during that stretch.

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Already, the Maple Grove native is tied for the third-most points in a season by a Wild rookie defenseman with 28.

“Just try to find that happy medium where I’m jumping in plays, where I’m skating with the puck on my stick a lot of the game still making smart solid strong decisions,” Faber said.

Only 3:05 later, the Wild moved ahead 2-0 on Foligno’s catch-and-swing.

“Two early goals for sure helps setting the tone for the game,” said Eriksson Ek, whose assist on the goal stretched his point streak to a season-high five games. “So, I think from there I think we controlled the game pretty good except for [Anthony] Mantha.”

After Johansson cruised through the neutral zone and flung in a shot from the left circle against his former team 6:28 into the second period, Mantha redirected in an Evgeny Kuznetsov pass at the 10-minute mark.

But Washington’s rally took a break before reigniting.

Eriksson Ek tallied his team-leading 20th goal just 1:37 into the third period, accepting a Foligno handoff and wiring in a shot that kissed the crossbar en route to the back of the net behind one-time Wild goalie Darcy Kuemper (25 saves).

“He does it all,” Foligno said of Eriksson Ek. “He’s one of our best, if not our best, players every night, and he leads by example.”

BOXSCORE: Wild 5, Washington 3

The center is only the ninth Wild player to post three straight 20-goal seasons.

“I’m happy to do that and just trying still to find ways to score more and then be a more consistent player,” said Eriksson Ek, whom coach John Hynes described as a “menace to play against.”

Johansson added another at 13:39 before Warroad’s T.J. Oshie converted on the power play at 17:03 for the Capitals (1-for-4 compared to 0-for-2 for the Wild) and Mantha pounced on a loose puck with 1:36 left.

But that late surge didn’t prevent the Wild from climbing closer to the playoff pace in the Western Conference.

They now trail Nashville, who sits in the last wild-card berth, by four points, and that’s who the Wild plays next.

“A really big, important game Thursday,” Foligno said. “We know what’s at stake.”