Kirill Kaprizov, in the midst of shattering the Minnesota Wild’s single-season scoring record and on pace for 46 goals and 101 points, was flying through the neutral zone last weekend in St. Louis. “The Thrill” cut across the middle, dipsied, then doodled, and just as two defenders were about to converge, the waves suddenly parted.

One player ole’d like a bullfighter. The other backed off so abruptly, he basically surrendered the offensive blue line to Kaprizov.

This was no aberration. Just watch: It happens umpteen times every game these days.

“Years ago, players would end up on their butts,” St. Louis Blues general manager Doug Armstrong says. “I’m fortunate to sit up top every game with (Hall of Fame defenseman) Al MacInnis, and every single night, we’ll see somebody coming through the neutral zone, we both brace ourselves, grab each other’s arm and go, ‘No!’

“Then, all of a sudden, everyone just sort of parts, and the player just skates through unharmed. You forget. This is how the game is played today.”

You combine the skill level and speed with the talented and brash modern-day player and the fact that the rules have changed dramatically since the 2004-05 lockout — the league has successfully eradicated the hard-to-watch clutching and grabbing of the mid to late 90s and early 2000s and largely eliminated those frightening neutral-zone and offensive-blue-line elbows and shoulders to the head — and the NHL has turned into one entertaining, skilled, fast, high-scoring league.

Trevor Zegras, the young Anaheim Ducks stud and Calder Trophy contender who flashes skill and all kinds of trickery nightly, doesn’t know hockey any other way.

This is how his generation grew up playing the sport, and he loves it.

“Guys are scoring at a pretty crazy rate right now. I mean, Auston Matthews has, what, 58 goals?” Zegras says. “It’s just kind of cool to be playing at a time where offense is such a big part of the game, and it’s inspiring to see these guys like Connor McDavid and Leon Draisaitl and all these great players putting up these big numbers. It gives you something to strive for and work on pretty much at all times. It’s definitely very cool to be in that mix right now.”

This is a new age in the NHL, a far cry from the dead puck era that saw a sharp decline in goal scoring from the 1980s. In 1980-81, teams averaged 4.01 goals per game. In the decade, there was never a year below 3.67 goals per game.

By 2003-04, goals per game fell to 2.57 — the lowest in a half-century.

This season, teams are averaging 3.09 goals per game, the highest average since 1995-96, when it was 3.14 per game. The league-wide save percentage of .907 is the lowest since 2006-07 (.905). The average penalty kill is 79 percent, which is frankly unbelievable. The average power play is 21 percent. As Edmonton Oilers coach Jay Woodcroft notes, “It wasn’t that long ago when if you had a 19, 20 percent power play, you were in the top five in the National Hockey League.”