In Chicago, Minnesota’s Marcus Foligno scored midway through the third period on Wednesday night to snap a 1-1 tie with the Blackhawks and send the Wild to a 2-1 win. 
Filip Gustavsson made 20 saves in the win.
“It wasn’t pretty today,” Gustavsson said. “The second period was very bad for us. Then in the third, we just found a way to win today. It wasn’t pretty. It’s not the best. It wasn’t what we should do. We’ve got to learn from it tomorrow. Watch the video. Take the two points from this game and leave it there.”
The Wild moved to 22-23-5.
“We had good first period,” Wild coach John Hynes said. “Then we came out and we got outcompeted, outskated, outexecuted in the second period. You can’t win hockey games like that. We had passengers, particularly in the second period. In the third period, we were better. The good thing is we won the game, which is important, but we’ve got to be much better collectively as a group moving forward here.”
Minnesota took a 1-0 lead in the opening stanza when Jacob Lucchini struck at 12:27 off a shot from above the circle.
“I saw it hit the post,” Lucchini said. “I thought it hit post post and went out. But the second post that I thought it was … it didn’t sound right. I had no idea.
“Any goal you score in the NHL is special. United Center against the Blackhawks is obviously pretty cool, but it was definitely special.”
Play was not stopped with the goal until later and a video review confirmed the goal.
In the first period, the Blackhawks were outshot, 11-1.
“I actually really liked our start,” Chicago’s Nick Foligno said. “And then they score and it’s like we fell back into bad habits of, ‘Just now they’re coming,’ instead of just pushing back. And that’s what disappointed me in that first period. We started falling back and letting them attack, and we had no jam in our game at all. We talked about it in between periods, and I thought we came out with a lot better effort in the second and third. That’s just how we have to play.”
The e Blackhawks dropped to 14-35-2 off their fifth straight loss.
“I think we just stopped moving our feet at both ends of the rink,” Chicago coach Luke Richardson said. “They kind of took over the second half of that first period, and we didn’t have a sharp power play. But I thought our penalty killing did a good job. We were just on our heels the second half of the first period, for sure.”
In the middle frame, Nick Foligno knotted the game, 1-1, at 13:44.
The goal was set up by a nifty pass from Vinni Lettieri.
“Unbelievable,” Foligno said of the feed from Lettieri. “I think (Frederick) Gaudreau did an awesome (line) change. Vinni comes flying off. I had a chance there coming around the net, and it was nice to get it back. Vinni, unbelievable game by him. He stopped a goal, too (at 16:25 of the third period in the crease). He was all over it tonight.”
Petr Mrazek made 23 saves in the loss.
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