The Wild fell three goals behind Vancouver on Monday before they really got going, erasing a 5-2 deficit with seven third-period goals in a 10-7 victory over the Canucks at Xcel Energy Center.

It was no mean feat. The Canucks lead the NHL with 31 victories after leading in the second period. Doing that two days in a row, however, was too much to ask for a Wild team playing the second of back-to-backs in Winnipeg on Tuesday.

Minnesota fell behind 3-0 on a Kyle Connor goal just 1 minute, 54 seconds into the second period and couldn’t catch the NHL’s best defensive team in a 6-3 loss Tuesday at Canada Life Centre.

The Wild did a lot well on Tuesday but scoring wasn’t one of them. They outshot the Jets 39-29, and outskated them generally, but Gabriel Vilardi and Mason Appleton scored goals 13 seconds apart in the first period for a 2-0 lead and never really looked back.

Minnesota lost a chance to catch Nashville and idle St. Louis, the teams directly ahead of them in the Western Conference standings. They also lost veteran defenseman Zach Bogosian, who played only 7:05 before leaving with an upper body injury after blocking a Winnipeg shot.

The Jets have won all three games between the Central Division rivals this season.

Marco Rossi scored two goals, the first on a power-play goal in the second period to pull Minnesota within 3-1 of the NHL’s best defensive team, but Vilardi scored on a power play and Sean Monahan on a deflection in the third period to make it 5-1 with 9:34 remaining.

The Jets entered Tuesday’s game with league-low 124 total goals and 2.34 goals-per-game average.

But the Wild kept skating, and Rossi and Kirill Kaprizov scored late third-period goals to make it interesting, but Wild coach John Hynes pulled Marc-Andre Fleury with a little more than 3 minutes left and Nino Niederreiter scored an empty-netter on a breakaway to seal it.
Laurent Brossoit made 36 saves for the Jets. Fleury stopped 24 of 29 shots and lost for the first time since a 4-0 loss to Dallas on Jan. 8.

The Wild opened strong, winning battles and putting pressure on the Jets’ defense for the first 7 minutes. Then they got pinned in their own end, Winnipeg set up its cycle and Declan Chisholm was called for hooking Niederreiter in front of the net.

The ensuing power play was a good one for the Jets, who retained possession chance after chance to wear down Minnesota’s kill unit. With 12 seconds left in the power play, Vilardi found an open position in front of the crease and deflected a pass from Connor behind Fleury net to make it 1-0 at 9:20.

It took only 14 seconds for the Jets to double the lead.

On the next shift, the Jets got the puck deep and Adam Lowry passed from behind the net to Applegate, who fired a one-timer from the right circle into the space between Fleury’s right shoulder and the post to make it 2-0 at 9:34.