by By John Shipley jshipley@pioneerpress.com , St. Paul Pioneer Press

Petr Sykora, Eric Belanger and Antti Miettinen scored on quick-strike rushes as the Wild skated hard and passed prettily in a 3-2 victory over the New York Rangers at the Xcel Energy Center. It was Minnesota's first win in regulation this season.

As consistently competitive as the Wild were under Jacques Lemaire, it's hard to recall a game in which the Wild scored three pretty goals. The problem, of course, is that the Wild have not been consistently competitive this season.

But for one night, it all came together for the Wild , who won at home for the fourth time in five games this season and improved to 4-9-0.

Sykora, a healthy scratch in the Wild's last game, added an assist for his first two-point game since last January, also against New York.

The Wild opened strong against a Rangers team missing leading scorer Marian Gaborik, instigator Sean Avery and winger Chris Higgins, outshooting New York 12-5 in the first period.

Minnesota finally stuck one in the net with 1 minute, 29 seconds left. Andrew Brunette started the scoring play by nabbing a pass through the slot and taking the puck behind the net, where he reversed field and passed back to center Mikko Koivu.

Koivu skated in and found Sykora streaking left. Sykora one-timed Koivu's pass by goalie Henrik Lundqvist for a 1-0 lead, completing the kind of tic-tac-toe play rarely seen last season.

New York tied the score early in the second period when Dane Byers, standing by himself in front of goalie Niklas Backstrom, stopped a rebound and sent it back through Backstrom's legs at 5:33, but the Wild kept the pressure on New York and soon retook the lead.

This time it was Belanger skating through the slot to one-time a backhand pass from Martin Havlat, who was skating through the far right circle, for a 2-1 lead at 7:49.

The Wild pushed that lead to two goals for just the second time this season with less than a minute left in the second.

Miettinen started the play with a poke check in the neutral zone. Koivu got the puck and sent it back ahead to Miettinen, who then sent it back to Koivu and skated behind him into the slot. Koivu stickhandled into the near right circle and sent a pass to Miettinen that he sent top shelf over Lundqvist's glove for a 3-1 lead at 19:02. It was Miettinen's first goal of the season.

New York pulled within a goal early in the third, scoring when Marc Staal beat Backstrom from the high slot at 5:01.

Gaborik, the Wild's first draft choice and career scoring leader, was back in Minnesota for the first time with another team, but he didn't play because of a knee injury. He leads the Rangers with 10 goals and 18 points in 12 games.

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