The Columbus Blue Jackets are not the only team in the NHL stacking wins together at the moment.
Thanks to their 2-0 win over the stunningly bad Colorado Avalanche on Tuesday night, the Minnesota Wild were able to extend their current winning streak to eight games thanks to goals from Charlie Coyle and Mikko Koivu.
The win improved the Wild to 19-8-4 on the season and thanks to Chicago’s loss to Ottawa helped close the gap to six points in the NHL’s central division with still four games in hand.
But the other big story for the Wild on Tuesday was the fact starting goaltender Devan Dubnyk was able to keep another team off the scoreboard, recording his league leading fifth shutout of the season.
He only had to face 18 shots on Tuesday against an Avalanche team that just didn’t seem to be in the game at all, but Dubnyk’s play this season in general has been phenomenal.
Tuesday’s game raised his save percentage on the season to .948 in 25 starts.
No other goalie in the league with at least 20 starts this season is above .936.
Ever since he arrived in Minnesota in the middle of the the 2014-15 season Dubnyk has been one of the better goalies in the league with a .930 save percentage and now 15 shutouts in 131 starts. That is a shutout every eight starts. Carey Price is second in the league over that stretch with only 11 shutouts, though to be fair, he has done that in only 67 starts.
Still, the point here is this: Dubnyk has been an amazing find for the Wild (they only gave up a third-round pick to get him from the Arizona Coyotes) and has completely solidified their goaltending position. He now has them in a pretty good position in the Western Conference.
For his as good as he has been over the past two years with the Wild, his performance this season has gone to an entirely new level and has to have him in the conversation for the Vezina Trophy.
The Wild are the top team in the league in goals against and have only given up 10 during their current winning streak, giving up more than one goal just three times and never more than two.