Talbot makes 30 saves, Wild shut out Blackhawks

CHICAGO -- Kevin Fiala had a goal and an assist to extend his point streak to 12 games, and Cam Talbot made 30 saves for the Minnesota Wild in a 5-0 win against the Chicago Blackhawks at United Center on Wednesday.

Fiala has scored 16 points (nine goals, seven assists) during the streak, which is tied for the longest in Wild history.
"It's very cool, to be honest," Fiala said. "Good job by everybody to bring the focus here in the last game and just finishing off and then go into the (All-Star) break. I'm very proud of the team."
Mats Zuccarello had a goal and an assist for Minnesota (28-10-3), which has won six straight and is 9-0-1 in a 10-game point streak.
"Shutouts are a team stat," Talbot said after his first shutout this season. "Wins are what are most important. It's certainly nice to throw one of those (shutouts) up every once in a while, but I'll take the win more often than not."

Chicago (16-23-7) has lost three in a row and seven of its past eight (1-5-2). Marc-Andre Fleury allowed five goals on 30 shots before being replaced in the third period by Collin Delia, who made five saves.
"Did not see that coming," Blackhawks coach Derek King said. "Yeah, good thing we're going on a break and we don't have practices coming up for these guys. Yeah, frustrating, let's put it that way. Just frustrating. Like I said, good practice, good morning skate, good meetings, I thought we had real good energy the first period. I thought we looked pretty good, started the game on time.
"The second period we just kind of, I don't know what it is with our second periods. We stopped playing the way we were in the first and that's a good hockey team. It's the same story, right? When we're struggling or fighting it, it's the same conversations we have. I have to figure out a way to stop having these conversations with you guys."
Frederick Gaudreau gave the Wild a 1-0 lead at 4:53 of the second period, scoring with a slap shot from the top of the right circle just before a power play expired.
Zuccarello made it 2-0 at 6:56 with a quick shot after receiving a pass from Jordan Greenway, who held off Blackhawks defenseman Connor Murphy for the puck behind the net.

Kirill Kaprizov extended the lead to 3-0 at 14:08. Following a turnover near the blue line, Zuccarello took a drop pass from Kaprizov and toe-dragged Murphy before sending a pass back to Kaprizov for a one-timer into an open net.
Kaprizov has scored 21 points (nine goals, 12 assists) during a personal 12-game point streak.
"Yeah, it's tough," Blackhawks forward Alex DeBrincat said. "I thought we played a good first period, had some chances to score, just didn't go in for us. And then a couple mistakes ends up 3-0 at the end of the second, so frustrating is the right word, but we've got to stick with it and limit the mistakes. They're a good team, so they're going to put it in the back of your net when you make mistakes."

Fiala made it 4-0 at 10:38 of the third period when he received a pass from Matt Boldy, skated in alone down the left wing and beat Fleury five-hole.
Nico Sturm scored 1:24 later for the 5-0 final.
"We liked our game tonight, for sure," Wild coach Dean Evason said. "We did a lot of really good things right from the start. We didn't deviate through the whole game, so that was good to see, for sure. Yeah, we scored some nice goals, but we did a lot of really good things.
"Our concentration tonight was to get out of our zone because we had heard that they worked on their forecheck a lot (Tuesday). We knew they were going to come. We knew they were going to be aggressive. We didn't want to spend any time in [the defensive zone]. Obviously, you don't want to spend time there, but that was a real focus with our video and our chat, that we get out of our zone quickly, and we just felt good things could happen."
NOTES:Fiala tied Mikael Granlund (12 games from Jan. 12-Feb. 4, 2017) for the longest point streak in Wild history. … Boldy has scored 10 points (four goals, six assists) in his first 10 NHL games.