Hockey coaches have a saying for the best way to win on the road: “You’ve gotta get off the bus.”

For the Minnesota Wild, who are playing 21 of their first 31 games this season away from Grand Casino Arena, one way they’ve climbed to an 11-3-3 record that has them atop the Western Conference is by getting off the bus.

Case in point: In Tuesday night’s 4-2 win in Philadelphia, they scored twice before the game was five minutes old, and they led 3-0 before holding on for a 4-2 win. It was the 12th time in their 17 games that the Wild have scored first, which is best in the NHL, and they are 9-0-3 in those dozen games.

During a 5-1 win in Washington on Sunday, the Wild’s top line of Kirill Kaprizov, Joel Eriksson Ek and Matt Boldy — quickly gaining credibility as the NHL’s most dangerous trio — scored first, and the second line of Blake Coleman, Michael McCarron and Bobby Brink scored next.

Two nights later in Philadelphia, they followed the same script, with goals by Boldy and McCarron just 31 seconds apart to dampen the often-raucous Philadelphia crowd.

“It’s easy to follow their lead, and just like the other night, it went their line then our line,” McCarron said to reporters at Xfinity Mobile Arena. “So, back-to-back again tonight, again, and it’s nice playing with a lead.”

For Wild coach John Hynes, it was noted that not only did the Wild again play well from ahead, they did it without panic, even after the Flyers got the crowd re-engaged, cutting the lead from 3-2 and getting a late power play with a chance to tie.

Thanks to a strong penalty kill, which included a big blocked shot by McCarron, Minnesota got on the bus and headed to the airport with two more points in their possession.

The Wild were outshot 11-4 in the final 20 minutes, but Hynes said afterward, “We were better in the third, I thought, with the lead — our puck play. We gave up a few odd-man rushes in the second, but I did like the fact that we tightened up in the third.”

Last season, the Wild were as good on the road, with 50 points, as they were at home, where they collected 54. Five weeks into this season, the Wild come to St. Paul for a brief weekend homestand with a 7-3-2 record on the road.

They’re technically better at home, with a 4-0-1 mark, but that is a decidedly small sample size in this road-heavy early stretch.

By this time next week, they’ll be back on the road for an “Original Six” trio of games in Montreal, Toronto and Boston. But they will get a few much-needed nights in their own beds before games against San Jose on Friday and Tampa Bay on Saturday.

No bus required.

“I think the guys have handled it really well,” Hynes said. “We’ve played a lot of good hockey. A lot of it has been on the road, but it will be nice to get home.”