Folks headed out on the road for Thanksgiving will tell you that sometimes you need to weather a storm to get where you need to be.
On Thanksgiving Eve in Chicago, the Minnesota Wild weathered a storm of pucks, trailing by a pair of goals at one point, but rallying for a 4-3 overtime win over the Blackhawks in their first meeting of the season.
Kirill Kaprizov’s power-play goal in the extra session came on just his second shot of the game but lifted the Wild to a 10-1-1 record in November.
The Wild got goals from Brock Faber, Nico Sturm and Matt Boldy to get to overtime. But their MVP of the evening was goalie Filip Gustavsson, who was busy start to finish, recording 34 saves and keeping the game from getting out of hand with the Blackhawks throwing everything his way early.
“Found a way to get it done. Not our best, I think everyone knows that, but good teams find ways to win,” Boldy said to reporters at the United Center. “A lot of credit to Gus for keeping us in it, and yeah, found a way.”
It was the sixth consecutive win for the Wild.
Both teams were 2 for 2 on the penalty kill in a scoreless first period, which was mostly due to Gustavsson. Chicago sent an eye-popping 20 shots his way — the busiest period for a Minnesota goalie this season — but none of them got through.
“We weren’t sharp, but he was really sharp early,” Wild coach John Hynes said, in praise of his goalie. “He gave us the opportunity to continue to push and get ourselves playing the way that we need to play. And it was off and on. But like I said, I think every night, you might not be at your best, but the mindset of the group tonight is something that I think we can draw on moving forward, that you got to keep fighting and keep battling, regardless of what happens, and you got to try to make a game of it.”
The Blackhawks onslaught continued unabated in the middle frame, with Minnesota killing another penalty but surrendering the first goal when Wild defenseman Zeev Buium arrived just a half-second too late to contest a shot in the low slot.
The Chicago goal snapped a run of more than 505 minutes that the Wild had gone without trailing, and it also ended their franchise record run of 12 consecutive games where Minnesota had scored first.
The dearth of offense led the Wild to do some line rearranging, with Kaprizov getting some extra shifts in hopes of testing the Chicago goalie more often. Instead it was Blackhawks star forward Connor Bedard doubling lead with a bang-bang play at the net-front.
There was some lousy puck luck that cost the Wild a power-play goal when Kaprizov’s tip at the net front slipped under Chicago goalie Spencer Knight, but the puck came to rest on — but not over — the goal line. Chicago appeared to make it 3-0 a few shifts later, but the Wild successfully challenged the play for offside.
Trailing by multiple goals for the first time in November, the Wild finally broke through in the final seconds of the period when a Faber shot from the blue line deflected off a Chicago player and fluttered through the air, off the post and in. It was the third goal in the past four games for Faber, who is on pace for a career-best season offensively.
The Wild finally forged a tie early in the third when Sturm tipped a Jonas Brodin shot past Knight. It was Sturm’s first goal in his second game of the season since returning from back surgery. But Chicago defenseman Artyom Levshunov’s first career goal gave the lead back to the Blackhawks. Briefly.
After Marcus Johansson was thwarted on a breakaway, Boldly made it 3-all in the latter half of the third with his team-leading 14th of the season.
“It’s obviously a sign that things are going well when you win games that maybe you were not supposed to, from the way the game worked,” Sturm said. “In the second intermission, we talked about how huge the power plays and how we wanted to generate momentum. Obviously, not the way we envisioned it but at the end of the day, we came away with the points. But we’re not, like, kidding ourselves in here. We know that it was not our best game today.”
In the overtime, Joel Eriksson Ek was leveled by a check in the neutral zone, with the puck far enough away from the play to warrant an interference call. With a 4-on-3 advantage in overtime, the strategy was simple: Get the puck to Kaprizov.
They did, and he scored, tying Zach Parise’s franchise record for career power-play goals with 69.
Wild forward Marcus Foligno left the game in the second period, favoring his leg after getting tied up with a Blackhawks player near the net. Hynes said he is unsure of Foligno’s status with back-to-back home games on Friday and Saturday upcoming.
Knight finished with 20 saves for the Blackhawks, who make their first visit St. Paul on Jan. 27.
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