Riding a 10-game point streak, Wild's about to head to Vancouver and Calgary, two teams it's chasing

There was a time back in the day when the Wild seemed to have no former collegiate players or only a handful.

Tonight, all five goal scorers in Minnesota's 6-3 win over Carolina and one of the chief playmakers all spent time at some higher-level institutions.

The goal scorers: Ex-University of Minnesota Golden Gophers Thomas Vanek (two goals), Jordan Schroeder (one) and Erik Haula (one), former Colorado College Tiger Nate Prosser (winning goal) and former University of North Dakota Fighting Nicknamelesses Zach Parise (empty-netter).

Justin Fontaine, a former University of Minnesota-Duluth Bulldog, had two assists as he was elevated to the right side of the Vanek-Mikael Granlund line and did a great job. Vanek's first goal, Fontaine chipped a puck, split the D and pressured John-Michael Liles into a turnover before Granlund set up Vanek for a gaping-netter. Then, after a Granlund faceoff win and Ryan Suter dump to his corner, Fontaine was first on the puck, evaded Tim Gleason, skated behind the net and sent a cross-crease pass to Vanek, who lost Liles, for the easy goal.

Vanek had his first 2-goal game with the Wild and the 49^th of his career. He also had his second 3-point game. Granlund also had two assists and was plus-3. Suter and Jonas Brodin were also plus-3.

The Wild, 8-0-2 in its past 10, matched its franchise-record point streak (9-0-1, March 2007), is 8-0-1 since the All-Star break, is 10-1-2 in 13 games since Devan Dubnyk's arrival and has won five in a row at home heading into a three-game trek to Vancouver, Calgary and Edmonton (the opposite route of its western Canadian sweep immediately after the break a few weeks back).

Winnipeg rallied to beat Detroit in a shootout, so the Wild only was able to keep pace with the Jets, who are five up. But the Wild has played three fewer games.

The first two opponents on this road trip, the Canucks and Flames. Drama!

It's amazing, last week when the Wild was idle for four days, everything seemed to go its way and everybody lost. Now it's winning again and so is everybody else, so it can't crack that top-8. If it was in eighth after tonight, it would have been the first time since Nov. 24.

Still, the Wild's doing its job and keeps getting points.

Coach Mike Yeo expected a low-scoring, tight-checking game, something he joked he was wrong about after. But he knew it would be a tough game. The Hurricanes entered 9-4-3 in their past 16 and have had a no-quit attitude and that certainly showed tonight as it turned 3-0 and 4-1 leads into a 4-3 deficit to tighten the Wild's collar going into the third.

Schroeder scored an awesome goal scorer's type goal to make it 3-0 (goalie coach Bob Mason told him before to game to shoot anywhere blocker on former Wild goalie Anton Khudobin), but then a terrible shift by Matt Dumba in the last minute led to a Jared Spurgeon icing and Carolina made it 3-1 with 10.3 seconds left in the period.

Then, weirdness by referee Dan O'Halloran. He calls Andrej Sekera for cross-checking, then allows 15 seconds of delayed penalty with goalie Devan Dubnyk on the bench for seven seconds before blowing it down when possession changed. Then, he evens out the calls by calling Mikko Koivu for embellishing the cross-check. Well, then how on earth was there a delayed penalty for 15 seconds if it was always going to be 4-on-4?

That changed the game. Instead of the Wild going on a power play up 4-1, it's 4-on-4, turnover, Jeff Skinner scored and 90 seconds later, Elias Lindholm tips Faulk's point shot to make it 4-3.

But in the third, the Wild played pretty well and Haula eased tension by having a Kyle Brodziak centering pass carom in off his braking right skate.

Normally, Minnesota and Carolina are two of the NHL's stingiest defensive teams, but the Duby vs. Doby show wasn't exactly a goalie duel.

Dubnyk, who had given up 17 goals in 12 previous starts with the Wild, gave up three. Khudobin, a 2004 seventh-round pick by Minnesota, gave up five on 18 shots.

Dubnyk made 24 saves to improve to 10-1-1 with a 1.60 goals-against average and .938 save percentage. Canes coach Bill Peters started Khudobin over Cam Ward because he beat his former Boston Bruins earlier this season and because he entered with a career .959 save percentage at Xcel Energy Center.

The Wild was beaten in a lot of races and board battles and turned pucks over in a poorly played second, but Yeo said he'll look at the bright side and say while it made things more tense, "it's probably better for us going out on the road that we had to play a meaningful third period or at least play a third period where we had to be sharper in a lot of areas in terms of how we played with the puck, structure-wise. If you carry some bad habits on the road, it's going to be tougher to get it back."

Yeo expected a hard game. The Canes have played well since the turn of the calendar, have beaten good teams and is happy his team hung on in the third.

He was very pleased with the job Fontaine did on the Vanek-Granlund line, saying because he played the right way.

"It's not easy for some of those guys when they get elevated to a different line and they think it's their turn to score some points and 'it's my ticket to staying there,'" Yeo said. "Quite often that could lead to turnovers or just being a liability."

Prosser on his goal said, "Usually you won't find me down there too often. I saw an opportunity coming off the bench. I just tried to sneak backdoor. Perfect sauce pass [by Vanek]. I didn't have to move my stick. By the time I got in and was ready to shoot it, Khudobin came out and his body was so big, I didn't see anywhere to shoot the puck so I just tried hopefully getting lucky putting it backdoor."

Prosser also praised Vanek, saying, "When guys are down and injured, we need him scoring goals and making plays and that's definitely what he's doing."

The Wild's PK is now 25 for 25 in nine games since the All-Star break. The Wild has scored first in all 10 wins of the 10-1-2 streak. The Wild has also outscored opponents 17-5 in the past 13 first periods since Dubnyk was acquired.

On all the Gophers scoring, Schroeder said, "It was fun. More importantly we got the win as a team. That's the bottom line."