In St Paul, Ryan Hartman and Frederick Gaudreau scored with less than two minutes left on the clock in the third period to help the Wild to a 3-1 win over the Chicago Blackhawks.
Filip Gustavsson made 22 saves in the Minnesota win.
“This is a game we should win,” Gustavsson said. “That’s what we said before, these two points are our points if we don’t play the wrong way. It was tight out there today. It didn’t feel like we really had the speed in the first period and it was kind of slow. We got a goal and we tried to ride it out, but they scored [to make it] 1-1. And then ‘Hartsy’ bailed us out today.”
The Wild improved to 42-22-9.
“You don’t get that much time sometimes,” Hartman said. “I was going to shoot high glove and I decided not to last second. I almost even faked myself out.”
Ryan Reaves scored his fifth of the season in the first period to give the Wild a 1-0 lead.
“It doesn’t matter how it goes in as long as it goes in,” Reaves said.
The Blackhawks dropped to 24-42-6 off their fourth straight loss.
“I thought the guys skated really hard,” Chicago coach Luke Richardson said. “Disappointing that they didn’t get at least a point, get to overtime, but you know, it was just an unfortunate bounce to the end. I think right from the start we played really in their way and frustrated them quite a bit. That was the game plan is the forecheck and tracking and really giving them no room out there.”
Chicago tied the game, with their only goal, in the third period on a strike by Lukas Reichel.
Hartman scored with 71 seconds left in the game, and Gaudreau hit an empty net with 31 seconds left in the game for the 3-1 final.
“It’s good for us to play games like this against teams that are maybe out of the playoffs or playing loose but yet hard,” Wild coach Dean Evason said. “…They’re playing hard. They’re playing for jobs and all that kind of stuff. They’re difficult games sometimes to play, but if we play how the Wild play, we’ll be fine.”
Alex Stalock made 22 saves in the Chicago loss.
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