COLUMBUS, Ohio — The Wild is starting to look like it did earlier in the season, but the transformation isn't complete.
After back-to-back wins following a woeful two weeks, the Wild faltered late in a 3-2 shootout loss to the Blue Jackets on Friday in front of 16,399 at Nationwide Arena to split its two-game road trip.
Overall, the Wild is 2-0-1 in its last three games and 2-2-1 over the past five while remaining in third place in the Central Division — just one point ahead of the Predators.
Columbus' Yegor Chinakhov scored the lone shootout goal after Zach Werenski delivered the equalizer with 32 seconds to go in the third period and the goalie pulled for an extra attacker.
Earlier, Kirill Kaprizov scored his team-leading and career-best 30th goal, Mats Zuccarello had a goal and assist to inch closer to a milestone and Kevin Fiala pushed his point streak to six games. All three, however, were blanked in the shootout.
Between the pipes, Kaapo Kahkonen turned aside 26 shots to drop a fifth straight start.
A night after it set a franchise record with its seventh multi-goal comeback of the season, rallying 6-5 in a shootout at Detroit, the Wild had to be persistent yet again.
The Blue Jackets scored first, at 13:31 of the first period on a power play shot by Chinakhov, and Columbus had a glorious chance to double that lead on a four-minute power play later in the first after Jordan Greenway received a double-minor for high-sticking.
But a tenacious penalty kill effort by rookie Connor Dewar, who was back in action after being a healthy scratch for two games, not only drained some of the clock but also drew a penalty.
Then, after Columbus was called for another infraction, the Wild went to the power play in the final minute of the period and that's when Kaprizov dazzled with a blistering top-shelf shot at 19:34.
Kaprizov is the seventh player in Wild history to reach the 30-goal plateau and first to do so since Eric Staal and Jason Zucker in 2017-18. The only Wild player to hit that benchmark in fewer games than Kaprizov's 56 is Marian Gaborik (47 in 2006-07, 48 in 2005-06 and 53 in 2007-08).
The second-year winger is also on an eight-game point streak that's tied for the longest of his career; he has seven goals and four assists in that span.
Zuccarello's assist was his 16th on the power play, tying his career high from 2017-18, and Fiala's helper moved him one point shy of matching his personal best in points (54) set in 2019-20.
Both teams finished 1 for 4 on the power play.
In the second period, the Wild dominated the puck and was rewarded with the go-ahead goal: a deflection by Zuccarello off a Jared Spurgeon shot that dribbled behind Columbus goalie Elvis Merzlikins at 13:33; Merzlikins ended up with 36 stops.
That goal, Zuccarello's 19th, bumped him up to 60 points, which is one back of the career-high 61 he racked up in 2015-16 with the New York Rangers. He's the 14th Wild player to record at least 60 points in a season.
Next up for the Wild is a franchise-record nine-game homestand that begins Sunday at Xcel Energy Center vs. Nashville.
