Granlund's 1st career hat trick punctuates banner night on big stage

Mikael Granlund is bursting into the next tier of NHL star.

On the big stage Saturday in Vancouver, and on the same sheet of ice of his brother Markus, the Minnesota Wild's leading point-producer registered his first NHL hat trick with a one-handed swipe at a loose puck skittering toward Ryan Miller in the Vancouver Canucks' crease.

Granlund is the 12th player in Wild history to score three in a game. And it might be the first in his lifetime.

"Hat tricks don't happen to me too often," Granlund told Michael Russo of the Minneapolis Star-Tribune. "I don't remember if I've ever done that."

Also adding an assist on a Mikko Koivu goal to record the first four-point game of his four-year career in Minnesota, Granlund vaulted into 12th in NHL scoring and exceeded career-best marks for goals and points.

He's currently riding a 12-game point streak, wherein which he's racked up five goals and 17 points and helped the Wild earn at least one point in each outing. Over the last two months, not one player has more points that Granlund's 34.

The 24-year-old Finn is a pending restricted free agent, and is in the process of earning himself an enormous raise this summer from his current $3-million salary.