CHICAGO — When the Minnesota Wild left the Twin Cities a week and a half ago, they did so knowing the 10-day road trip could be a turning point for them.
It’s proved to be exactly that as the Wild returned looking much more like themselves.
In total, the Wild finished the long road trip 3-1-1, capping it with a 4-3 shootout win over the Chicago Blackhawks on Sunday night at the United Center. Kirill Kaprizov and Freddy Gaudreau scored in the shootout. Marc-Andre Fleury denied Blackhawks stars Jonathan Toews and Patrick Kane.
As for the other games of the road trip, the Wild fell to the Boston Bruins in overtime, defeated the Montreal Canadiens and Ottawa Senators, and lost to the Detroit Red Wings. They collected 7 of a possible 10 points to climb up the standings.
“It was big,” Fleury said, mentioning the 0-3-0 start to this season. “It was a long road trip with a lot of travel and stuff. Every team’s good. Everybody’s got a chance to win. I’m proud of the way the guys battled tonight and got two points.”
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Before the game even started on Sunday night the Wild suffered a loss as Marcus Foligno sat out with an upper-body injury. Asked for further details, coach Dean Evason remained intentionally vague and didn’t give a timetable on Foligno’s return.
To make matters worse, the Wild lost Ryan Hartman in the actual game after he decided to drop the gloves with Blackhawks defenseman Jarred Tinordi. After a very brief fight, Hartman got taken to the ice and suffered an upper-body injury in the process. He did not return to the game.
“He obviously didn’t come back,” Evason said. “It’s serious enough that we’ve talked about getting a guy (from the minors) up here.”
As for the game itself, less than 24 hours after Evason implored his players to get the “cuteness” out of their game, the Wild worked their butts off. Though they fell behind in the first period when Blackhawks defenseman Jake McCabe made it 1-0, the Wild responded on the very next shift as Matt Boldy leveled the score at 1-1.
The solid play for the Wild continued a few minutes later when Mason Shaw scored the first goal of his NHL career to make it 2-1. He found the back of the net thanks to a beautiful pass from Sam Steel, then celebrated the milestone with Connor Dewar, his teammate with the Iowa Wild of the American Hockey League.
“You go through a lot of stuff with a guy like that to get to this point,” Shaw said. “For him to be a part of that goal, to be the first one there and the hugs after, it was a special moment for me, that’s for sure.”
Likewise for Dewar.
“Just overjoyed for him,” Dewar said. “He’s worked so hard. He’s been through so much with his surgeries and his rehabs. He’s a very mentally strong person and he definitely earned that. It wasn’t given to him. So I was very proud of him.”
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The sequence was the latest example of Shaw injecting some life in the bottom half of the Wild lineup. He’s been a spark plug ever since being called up from the minors a week and a half ago, and he’s slowly carving out a niche for himself because of it.
“He just competes his (butt) off every single night,” Evason said. “Not the biggest guy in the world but he battles and battles. We’re all very happy he’s helping our hockey club.”
Though the Wild controlled the early portion of the game, things eventually started to even out, and Toews tied the game at 2-2 midway through the second period with a gritty play in front.
That score held until midway through the third period when Blackhawks winger Andreas Athanasiou dangled around Matt Dumba and finished off a beautiful shot to make it 3-2. That lead was short lived as Boldy leveled the score at 3-3 on the very next shift just like he did earlier in the game.
That paved the way for a highly entertaining overtime and the ensuing shootout where the Wild came out on top.
“It was a good road trip,” Boldy said. “You get to bond with teammates a lot on the road going to dinners and being together all the time. I think it was what we needed. Now we just keep going in this right direction.”
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