(Thursday, November 3rd)

Final Score: Minnesota 5, Vancouver 1

St. Paul, MN (Sports Network) - Matt Cullen scored two goals and added an assist, leading the Minnesota Wild to a 5-1 victory over the Vancouver Canucks from Xcel Energy Center.

Pierre-Marc Bouchard scored and dished out two helpers, while Guillaume Latendresse and Marco Scandella netted the other goals for the Wild, who got 24 saves from Josh Harding.

Dan Hamhuis netted the only goal for the Canucks and Cory Schneider made 40 saves in defeat as the defending Western Conference champs dropped to 6-6-1 on the season.

Vancouver grabbed the lead just 2:20 into the opening stanza when Daniel Sedin took the puck around behind the net from the right circle and fed one out in front. The puck sat in the slot amid bodies before Hamhuis spotted the disc and buried it in behind Harding.

The Canucks took the 1-0 lead into the first intermission, but Minnesota took control of the game in the second period, scoring three unanswered goals.

The Wild knotted the game at one 4:47 into the second period when Latendresse accepted a pass in the neutral zone from Marek Zidlicky, deked past Kevin Bieksa, who had gone down to block a shot, then backhanded one from a sharp angle short side on Schneider to make it 1-1.

Just 21 seconds later, Minnesota took a 2-1 lead when Bouchard took a pass unchecked in the slot from Cullen and blasted it stick side past Schneider.

The Wild made it 3-1 at 17:05 of the second when Vancouver failed to clear the zone. The puck was rolled behind the net to Kyle Brodziak, who sent the puck to Scandella at the left point and the defenseman walked into the slap shot, one-timing it through traffic and into the net.

Cullen cemented the win for the Wild at 6:08 of the final stanza when the big winger accepted a pass from Bouchard, flew through down the left wing with speed, deked Schneider and buried his wrister short side to make it 4-1.

"We did a good job of putting pucks at the net," Cullen said. "That's something we worked on a lot in practice. It was nice to see some results tonight. We created a lot of offense and made it tough on them."

Cullen added his second goal of the contest at 17:52 of the third period when Devin Setoguchi blasted one from the right circle that was kicked out by Schneider, but Cullen rammed home the rebound from the slot to account for the final score.

"Every shot they got, we gave it to them," Henrik Sedin said. "We kept coming to the middle and trying to force pucks up the middle through the neutral zone and we turned a lot of pucks over."

Game Notes

It was Hamhuis' first goal in 22 games...Vancouver went 0-for-5 with the man advantage, while Minnesota was 0-for-3 on the power play...The Canucks will head to St. Louis to battle the Blues on Friday, while Minnesota will face the Blues on Saturday.

11/03 23:24:35 ET