They didn’t litter the ice with sticks and gloves in celebration, but Minnesota Wild players probably felt like doing just that Monday night.
In the first game of the John Torchetti coaching era, the Wild experienced the sweet sensation of victory for the first time in 26 days. Two days after Mike Yeo was ousted as Wild coach, the Wild ended an eight-game losing streak by playing with pace, energy and a semblance of competence for a change during a 5-2 win over the Vancouver Canucks at Rogers Arena.
Five different scorers _ Zach Parise, Jared Spurgeon, Justin Fontaine, Charlie Coyle and Nino Niederreiter _ got goals. Erik Haula and Ryan Suter, who each had strong all-around games, had two assists apiece. And Devan Dubnyk made 24 saves for his first victory since Jan. 9, ending a nine-game winless streak.
The Wild scored its most goals in a game since Jan. 5 at Columbus. That was 17 games ago. The Wild, which had won once in the previous 14 games, won for the fourth time in 20 games in 2016 and moved within four points of seventh- and eighth-place Nashville and Colorado. The Wild has played one fewer game than the Predators, three fewer than the Avalanche.
The Wild continues its three-game road trip in Calgary on Wednesday.
Hours earlier, Torchetti said he’d be leaning on his assistant coaches to help with matchups because he doesn’t know NHL opponents the way he knows the American Hockey League.
But Torchetti looked at ease behind the bench.
He diagramed plays, got in players’ ears _ even veterans such as Parise _ and inhaled smelling salt as if it was nasal spray. A previous interim coach with Florida and Los Angeles, he improved to 3-0 in NHL coaching debuts.

Good start
In the first period, the Wild hounded the puck, forechecked the heck out of the struggling Canucks and outshot them 17-4.
Parise got things started by checking Matt Bartkowski off a puck, then blasting his first goal in nine games _ maybe not so coincidentally, that was in the Wild’s previous win at Los Angeles _ over Jacob Markstrom’s shoulder.
Chris Tanev tied the score with a power-play goal, but the Wild got a great response from Spurgeon, who got sprung by Haula en route to his first goal since Jan. 2. He, too, fired upstairs on Markstrom.
Spurgeon had two points in his first game back after missing three because of an oblique injury.
The Wild carried that 2-1 lead into the second period and got an early goal from Fontaine _ his second in four games _ after a terrific setup by Haula. One of the few forwards who had been playing well the last month under Yeo, Haula has seven points in his past 11 games.
The Wild, which has allowed eight power-play goals in the past seven games, got into penalty trouble the rest of the period. The Wild took three in the period and Henrik Sedin cut the deficit to 3-2 when his cross-crease pass deflected in off Dubnyk’s stick.
But the Wild had another penalty kill negated by a questionable Bo Horvat hooking minor, and after the ensuing 4-on-4, Coyle scored his 16th goal and sixth in the past 10 games when his intended pass banked in off Tanev’s stick. The Wild has scored six power-play goals in the past six road games after six in the first 22 road games.
It was a quality effort by the Wild, which looked motivated to impress the new coach. He promised a clean slate, and players skated like that. They moved the puck well, worked hard and, despite having to hang on late, were rewarded finally.
That tailwind the Wild experienced during its flight to Calgary was one giant sigh of relief.