Analysis: Wild extend winning streak to four under John Hynes

With the win over the Calgary Flames, the Minnesota Wild have extended their win streak to four in a row.

The Wild took care of business with three straight wins over Central Division teams last week and have now opened game one of four against Western Conference teams on the road with a win.

Coming into tonight, these four games are crucial for the Wild to walk out with points and if they do that, climbing the standings will become a little easier when you're picking up wins against other teams in the West. 

Tonight it was the Calgary Flames the Wild defeated and they did it with a points from Mats Zuccarello, Matt Boldy, and another red hot start by Filip Gustavsson.

Mats Zuccarello entered tonight's game against the Flames with a seven game assist streak. With an assist on Kirill Kaprizov's goal in the second period, Zuccarello extended his assist streak to eight games and his point streak to ten. 

It is the second longest active streak in the NHL and the longest assist streak of Zuccarello's career. In his last ten games, Zuccarello has three goals and 14 points. Only Connor McDavid, Cale Makar, Nikita Kucherov, Nathan MacKinnon, and David Pastrnak have more points-per-game in that span.

If the Wild want to gain some ground in the standings they need their star players to produce and Zuccarello has been all season but has really turned it on as a late and it has helped the Wild win their fourth straight. 

The Wild signed Filip Gustavsson to a three-year contract before the season started after his incredible 22-9-7 season where he posted a .931 save percentage and a 2.10 goals-against average. 

But Gustavsson really struggled to start the season. In fact, Gustavsson had the leagues worst 4.64 goals-against average in his first eight games of the season but has really turned it around since. 

Tonight, Gustavsson stopped 28 of 30 and earned his third straight win. In his last six starts, the 6-foot-2 goaltender is 3-2-1 with a 1.82 goals-against average and a .931 save percentage. Which ranks third in the NHL in goals-against average and save percentage in since November 18th (minimum of five games started).

There is no denying Matt Boldy was struggling just about a week ago. In fact in the first 12 games of the season, Boldy only had one goal. Since John Hynes took over as the Wild's new head coach, Boldy has four goals in four games. 

Only Artemi Panarin and Michael Carcone have more goals in the NHL since November 28th, which was the first game under Hynes. 

Boldy's two goals in the second period helped the Wild come out with a 5-2 win over Calgary and helped Minnesota extend its winning streak to four games. Which makes Hynes the second head coach to start his tenure with the Wild with a win streak of four or more games, joining John Torchetti who went 4-0-0 from Feb. 15-21, 2016.