Even if the Wild don’t rally to earn a playoff spot, Saturday’s victory over the Vancouver Canucks will be remembered as a big one. And if they do, it will be doubly memorable.

Joel Eriksson Ek and Kirill Kaprizov each scored hat tricks, two goals each among five unanswered Wild goals to start the third period as Minnesota rallied to beat the NHL’s best team, 9-7, at Xcel Energy Center.

Kirill Kaprizov actually scored four goals total, two of them empty-netters, and Marco Rossi scored the other as the Wild erased a 5-3 deficit in just 4 minutes, 28 seconds, taking an 8-5 lead on Kaprizov’s second goal of the game.

After combining for four regulation goals in two previous games this season, the teams exploded for 16 on Saturday. Minnesota set a season-high for goals and improved to 2-1-0 against the Canucks, who have an NHL-best 80 points this season.

Shots were at a premium for much of the game, and a lot of them found the back of the net. Filip Gustavsson stopped 11 of 16 shots for Minnesota before being relieved by Marc-Andre Fleury to start the third period, and Casey DeSmith — who entered the game with a 5-0-1 record and 1.63 goals-against average in six starts against the Wild — stopped of 17 of 26.

Brock Boeser pulled the Canucks to within a goal with 2:03 remaining, but Kaprizov scored an empty-netter with 1:07 left to seal the Wild’s biggest win of the season.

Minnesota improved to 5-0-1 since returning from the all-star break with a 2-1 victory at Chicago on Feb. 7.