ahead goal with 5:31 left in the third period, and Casey Wellman and Pierre-Marc Bouchard scored 32 seconds apart in the second period, to lead the Minnesota Wild to a 4-3 victory over the Anaheim Ducks 5-3 Sunday. Dany Heatley scored a power-play goal and Kyle Clutterbuck added a short-handed empty-netter with 10.2 seconds left for Minnesota in the opener of a five-game trip. Matt Cullen added three assists for Minnesota against his former club, and Josh Harding made 24 saves. The victory put the Wild atop the overall NHL standings with 37 points under rookie coach Mike Yeo. They are off to their best start in the franchise's 11-year history at 17-7-3, and have won four straight and nine of 11 — a stretch that began with a 3-2 win over the Ducks on Nov. 13 at Anaheim. Ryan Getzlaf, Saku Koivu and Cam Fowler scored for Anaheim and Jonas Hiller made 31 saves in his 200th regular-season game. Teemu Selanne appeared in his 800th regular-season game with the club. Avalanche 4, Red Wings 2: At Denver, Ryan O'Reilly had two goals and Semyon Varlamov made 27 saves as Colorado beat Detroit to end the Red Wings' winning streak at seven games. Paul Stastny and T.J. Galiardi also scored, and Gabriel Landeskog added two assists to help Colorado win its third straight. Henrik Zetterberg and Johan Franzen scored for Detroit, and Ty Conklin made 31 saves. Galiardi got the winner while Colorado killed off Ryan Wilson's minor penalty. Landeskog carried the puck into the Detroit zone, dropped it to the trailing Galiardi and he beat Conklin with a slap shot from the top of the circle with 10:38 left. It was Colorado's fourth short-handed goal of the season. Detroit pulled Conklin for an extra skater with a minute left and O'Reilly scored into the empty net with 34 seconds left. “We talked before the game that you have to respect them, but not too much,” Galiardi told reporters. “I think we took it to them for the most part. It's huge for us. They are such a good team over there.” The Red Wings (16-8-1) had not lost since Nov. 17 and were rarely challenged during their streak before visiting Colorado. “I don't think we played very well,” Danny Cleary said. “We didn't seem to have our legs. We certainly didn't play how we have been playing the last seven games.” In the only other game Vancouver beat Calgary 5-1.
