LOS ANGELES  — Matt Hackett has played in only two NHL games, and already he’s showing the poise and confidence of a veteran.

Hackett made 42 saves in his first career start and the Minnesota Wild set a franchise record with their sixth straight road victory, beating the Los Angeles Kings 4-2 on Thursday night.

“I can’t explain it. It’s been crazy,” said Hackett, the 21-year-old nephew of former NHL goalie Jeff Hackett. “It’s the best 72 hours of my life so far. I’m just living the dream right now, and I just want to keep it going. Usually, I have a pregame nap, but I was so excited to play that I really didn’t get to sleep. I was just focusing on what I was supposed to do, and I felt like I did it pretty well.”

Hackett made his debut Tuesday night at San Jose and stopped all 34 shots he faced in a relief role. He replaced Josh Harding 71 seconds into the game with a 1-0 deficit and enabled the Wild to pull out a 2-1 win.

Hackett stretched his string of consecutive saves to 65 on Thursday before Dustin Penner converted a rebound of Jack Johnson’s shot from a sharp angle to the right of the net at 3:59 of the third period to cut Minnesota’s lead to 3-1.

“I played with Hack in the minors with Houston, and he brought us all the way to the Calder Cup finals. So I have a lot of confidence in the guy,” Minnesota defenseman Marco Scandella said. “He works hard in practice and he’s a gamer, so I had no doubt that he was going to perform well tonight and also in the last game. He’s really good with his positioning, and that’s really important — especially for a young goalie.”

Scandella, Mikko Koivu, Darroll Powe and recent call-up Cody Almond scored for Minnesota, which leads the NHL standings with 41 points and is off to the best start in the franchise’s 11-year history at 19-7-3. The Wild have won 11 of their last 13 games, a stretch that began immediately following a 5-2 loss to the Kings on Nov. 12 at Los Angeles.

“We’ve got a lot of talent in this room, so I don’t know why it would be a surprise,” Scandella said. “Yeozie (Mike Yeo) is a great coach.”