Joel Eriksson Ek scored a career-high four goals in his return from a lower-body injury, Kirill Kaprizov had his second of the game in overtime in his first game back and the Minnesota Wild outlasted the San Jose Sharks 8-7 on Wednesday night.
Minnesota is tied with St. Louis for the second wild card in the Western Conference, as the Blues lost late in Edmonton on Wednesday night.
Eriksson Ek missed the previous 21 games. Kaprizov also returned from a lower-body injury after having surgery in late January. He was leading the Wild with 52 points through 37 games prior to the procedure. He also missed 12 games due to injury in late December and January.
"Obviously [Eriksson Ek] and Kirill were huge difference makers in the game," Wild coach John Hynes told reporters. "I'm happy for a lot of different reasons in that respect. It's hard on those guys. They're obviously tremendous competitors, they mean so much to the team and personally, they [want to] play, and that was a lot of time off, a lot of rehab, a lot of dark days for them as well. Can they come back? Will they come back? And you know, you progress and there's a setback or you progress and you're not really what you need to be, but I give those guys credit, I give our training staff, our doctors and our strength and conditioning coaches credit, the guys were ready to play and they were huge difference makers in the game."
Kaprizov -- who also had an assist against the Sharks -- scored his 25th goal of the season at 1:01 of overtime to end it after Will Smith tied it for San Jose with 52 seconds left in regulation.
Eriksson Ek gave Minnesota a 3-2 lead at 7:29 of the second, then scored three straight in a 2:18 span late in the second and early in the third to make it 7-4. His first three goals came on power plays.
Eriksson Ek fell short of Marian Gaborik's team record of five goals set Dec. 20, 2007, against the New York Rangers.
In the corresponding moves earlier Wednesday to make room for Eriksson Ek and Kaprizov, the Wild reassigned forwards Brendan Gaunce and Devin Shore to their AHL affiliate in Iowa.
Information from The Associated Press was used in this report.