The fastest hat trick to start a game in Wild history wasn’t enough to faze the host Nashville Predators, so the Wild used another overtime effort to get the job done.

Captain Jared Spurgeon scored a walk-off with 46 seconds to go in OT after three first-period goals from Matt Boldy got the Wild started in a 6-5 victory on Wednesday at Bridgestone Arena.

That extended the Wild’s win streak to five in their last game before the Olympics.

After blowing 2-0 and 3-1 leads, the Wild coughed up a 5-4 advantage late in the third period to go to overtime for a 23rd time, and Spurgeon polished off a 2-on-1 pass for his sixth career OT goal.

Quinn Hughes factored in two Boldy goals to stretch his assist streak to a franchise-record 10 games, becoming the first defenseman in NHL history to post an assist streak of 10 games in his first season with a team.

Filip Gustavsson stopped 30 shots, as Jesper Wallstedt and Marcus Foligno remained sidelined sick, but the Wild did get Daemon Hunt back after Hunt left the previous game early after taking a puck to the throat.

Almost half of the Wild’s lineup is going to Italy for the Winter Games, but everyone else will get a break before the team reconvenes for the final 24 games of the regular season — a push to the playoffs that’ll resume with the Wild second in the NHL and Central Division.

How it happened

Boldy will join Team USA as the Americans’ leading goal scorer.

The winger set a career high and matched Kirill Kaprizov for the team lead at 32 by scoring three times in 11 minutes, 9 seconds during the initial 12:58 against the Predators.

His first, only 1:49 in, was off a breakaway for the second 30-goal season of his NHL career. Then at 3:39 on the power play, Boldy redirected in a Hughes pass to score the fastest two goals by one player to ever begin a Wild game.

Nashville responded with its own power-play goal at 9:26 when Filip Forsberg pounced on a loose puck in the crease, but Boldy’s impressive period continued: He got on the end of his own rebound at 12:58 to reach 32 goals and edge Zach Parise’s hat trick in 16:33 on March 24, 2016, as the quickest to start a Wild game; only Joel Eriksson Ek (2:18 on April 9, 2025) has had a faster Wild hat trick at any time of the game.

But the Predators weren’t deterred.

They capitalized on another power-play goal, this time from Steven Stamkos at 16:45, before former Wild forward Erik Haula completed the comeback with 1:39 left in the first period by whacking in a pass from the boards behind the net.

Only 41 seconds into the second, the Wild were trailing after Luke Evangelista collected a rebound and deposited it by Gustavsson.

Nashville almost had another soon after, but Spurgeon blocked Forsberg’s shot at an empty net.

Turning point

With 3:54 to go in the second period, the Wild finally caught up to the Predators when captain Roman Josi couldn’t corral the puck and Trenin buried the bobble behind goalie Juuse Saros, who finished with 38 saves.

They moved ahead 5-4 on a flukey own goal: Tarasenko’s shot banked in off the skate of Nashville’s Nick Blankenburg with 4:46 remaining in the third.

But after a missed off-side against the Predators, Nashville benefited from a similar bounce off the Wild because Roman Josi’s shot off the next faceoff deflected in off Eriksson Ek’s skate just 34 seconds later.

Key stat

The Wild’s 23 overtime games are tied with the Kings for the most in the NHL.

Up next

The Wild are off for the Olympics until Feb. 26 when they’ll be in Colorado to play the first-place Avalanche.

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