1/10 RECAP: Wild D-Men Score in 2-1 Win Over Chicago to End Team’s Road Skid

The road woes are over – at least for the moment.

The Minnesota Wild snapped their four-game losing skid with a 2-1, come-from-behind victory against the Chicago Blackhawks on the road Wednesday night.

The victory put the Wild (23-17-4) two points ahead of the Blackhawks (21-16-6) in the Central Division standings where there’s a logjam of teams looking to get themselves in the playoff picture somehow. The Wild are 2-2 against Chicago this season, with both victories coming at United Center. The Blackhawks have outscored the Wild 12-5 this season.

Their last road victory came on Dec. 19; they’re now 9-13-1 on the road this season.

The game didn’t get off to a promising start for the Wild, but they found a way to get refocused and get the all-important two points against a division rival.

Defenseman Jonas Brodin got the Wild on the board at 9:58 of the second period with his fourth of the season on a shot that deflected off Blackhawks defenseman Tommy Wingels, causing the puck to change direction as it found a path toward the net.

Matt Dumba assisted on the goal, tallying his 100th career point. Jason Zucker, who’s trying everything to score a goal during a tough stretch, earned his 16th assist this season with the primary helper.

Overall, the second period was a vast improvement from the first 20 minutes of the game. The Wild were probably lucky to only be down 1-0 after that period, on a goal by Brent Seabrook -- after a Marcus Foligno turnover -- that head coach Bruce Boudreau unsuccessfully challenged for offsides. The Wild were outshot 14-5 in the first; the Blackhawks actually had 40 attempted shots.

“Yeah, the first period was rough,” said Ryan Suter. “We didn’t seem to have our legs. Duby kept us in it.”

Both teams were playing for the second night in a row after traveling.

The Wild broke the tie early in the third period during a 4-on-4 play started by Mikael Granlund who started a rush with an in-between-the-legs pass to Mikko Koivu. The captain skated into the offensive zone with Suter on the other side, passing the puck over. Suter wasted zero time rifling the shot toward the goal.

The puck went in on the high glove side.

Patrick Kane, coming off a five-point night in Ottawa, was in the penalty box at the time for Chicago.

From there, the Wild hung on for the last 17 minutes to get the victory. They did a great job killing off a Brodin penalty with 5:25 left. Daniel Winnik even had a shorthanded breakaway opportunity. Then with 2:10 left, Granlund couldn’t pull the trigger on a breakaway chance of his own, but he drew the slashing penalty, putting the Wild in control as the seconds ticked off the clock toward the end of the game.

The pair of goals from a couple Wild defensemen only helped boost the stat of the blue line’s abundance of points this season. The defense has 100 points (24 goals, 76 assists) this season in 44 games. They came in ranked fourth in the NHL in this category with 97 points, but the goals and Dumba’s assist against Chicago bumped up the numbers.

Suter has 28 of those points. His goal was No. six this season and the sixth in his career against Chicago. He has 35 points in 70 games when facing the Blackhawks, the most points he has against any NHL team. He came into the night tied for 13th among league defensemen with his point total. He has at least one point in 11 of his last 15 games this season (2-11—13).

The Wild got help from the defense against Calgary the night before as well; Suter had two assists and Spurgeon scored to tie the game and eventually force overtime.

“If you look statistically, our blue line is pretty up there in points… that’s what we need,” Boudreau said.

In goal:

Tidbits:

Up next:

The Wild have back-to-back home games this weekend before the bye week. They’ll host Winnipeg on Saturday.

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