If you seek an escape from the doldrums of January in Minnesota, the Illinois waterfront is not high on the list of tropical destinations. But for the recently-struggling Minnesota Wild, a visit to the Windy City was exactly the tonic they needed.
The Wild scored early and played two periods of stifling defense versus the Central Division cellar-dwelling Chicago Blackhawks, surviving a late push and skating away with a 4-2 win in their final meeting of the season.
Minnesota, which is below .500 at Xcel Energy Center this season but sports the NHL’s top record away from home, continued their mastery while wearing their road white sweaters. That included first period goals by Jared Spurgeon and Freddie Gaudreau just 94 seconds apart.
Joel Eriksson Ek added a power-play marker in the second period as Minnesota got 18 saves from Filip Gustavsson, winning for the sixth time in their last eight games on the road. Marcus Foligno added an empty net goal late.
“I thought we were much more focused I think to start the game, the competitive level, I think the contributions throughout the lineup was good,” Wild coach John Hynes told the reporters at the United Center. “And going into the game, we said there’s two teams that are going to try to win. There’s going to be surges and pushes in the game and obviously that came in the third period. The key is to find ways to win is what we talked about. So, I think a step in the right direction in a multitude of areas and now we gotta keep building on it.”
Spurgeon, playing his third game since returning from injury, caught the upper corner with a wrist shot to open the scoring. Gaudreau responded with his second goal in as many nights on the next shift, deflecting a puck off the glove of Chicago goalie Petr Mrazek for a 2-0 lead.
In the middle frame, Chicago’s Nick Foligno was whistled for holding Wild star forward Kirill Kaprizov, and complained a bit too forcefully about the call, drawing a second penalty. Minnesota made it 3-0 on the extended power play, as Eriksson Ek recorded his ninth goal of the season and second of the weekend.
Having just gotten Spurgeon back in the lineup after he missed most of January with a lower body injury, the Wild went down another defenseman early in the second when Jake Middleton took a slap shot – fired by Chicago defenseman Alec Martinez – off the side of his right leg. Middleton got help making it to the bench in the form of a friendly shove from Gustavsson and was helped down the tunnel to the Wild locker room. He returned for the third period, taking a penalty for cross checking in the opening minute of the final frame, and later participating in a near-fight with former Wild teammate Patrick Maroon.
“We stuck to our game. We talked a lot about playing the right way in all three zones and we did that in the first two periods,” Middleton said. “That being said, we knew they were going to have a push at some point throughout the game. There’s ebbs and flows in every game. They made that push in the third, we weathered it better than we have in the last month and came out on top.”
Perhaps the biggest area of concern for Minnesota on this night was the continued struggle of their penalty-killers, as Chicago needed just nine seconds of man advantage to spoil Gustavsson’s shutout bid when the home team scored in the opening minute of the third. Chicago made it a one-goal game a short time later, scoring on a broken play with Gustavsson pulled out of position. But the Wild killed two more late penalties to hold on.
“At the end, the penalty kill came through huge,” Middleton said. “Gus kept his composure late in the third too. A lot of guys dialed it in to execute and win the hockey game.”
After some high drama with Chicago pushing to tie, Marcus Foligno hit an empty net goal with under two minutes to play to seal the win. They finished 3-0-1 versus Chicago in the season series.
Chicago was held to just five shots on goal in the opening 40 minutes, which tied a Wild franchise record for fewest opponent shots in the opening two periods of a game. Mrazek had 24 saves for the Blackhawks.
“It was awesome seeing the team play like that. We talked about it before the game after last night’s game, and they responded,” Gustavsson said of his light workload in the opening two periods. “We showed our cards a little bit to the coaches how good we can play and what we should expect from each other moving forward.”
The Wild’s five-game road trip, which features a quartet of Original Six teams, continues on Wednesday with their only visit of the season to Toronto. They defeated the Maple Leafs in overtime 2-1 in St. Paul on Nov. 3.
Related Articles
Wild coach John Hynes has choice words for his skidding team
Hockey Day dud, as Wild’s home woes continue
Even for the Wild, Hockey Day Minnesota brings a special vibe to the rink
Wild goaltender Filip Gustavsson is in a slump. Can he work himself out of it?
Wild continue their struggles on home ice in 4-0 loss to Utah Hockey Club
Leave a Reply