Wild rally from down 3, defeat Blackhawks in shootout

ST. PAUL, Minn. -- Joel Eriksson Ek had a goal and an assist, and the Minnesota Wild came back from a three-goal deficit for a 4-3 shootout win against the Chicago Blackhawks at Grand Casino Arena on Tuesday.

With the extra attacker having just come on the ice for goalie Jesper Wallstedt, Jared Spurgeon tied it 3-3 at 17:58 of the third period, backhanding in the rebound of an Eriksson Ek shot.

“Just trying to find loose pucks,” Eriksson Ek said. “Having a defender with you and just trying to either open up space or screen or get a rebound. Yeah, ‘Spurgy’ came up with a big goal.”

The Wild killed off a penalty for the final 1:56 of overtime, then Kirill Kaprizov scored the only goal of the shootout.

Yakov Trenin also scored for the Wild (30-14-10), who are 4-1-1 in their past six games. Wallstedt made 29 saves.

“I thought in the first period they were the better team,” Minnesota coach John Hynes said. “I thought they were quicker, faster, harder on pucks. I think I would say that the readiness to play, I thought they had a really good first, I thought we battled ourselves back a little bit better in the second, but then in the third, I thought we really got to the game that we needed to get to.

“But what I really like is that we did not have a good start to the game, but it wasn’t that we just faded into the night. We held serve. ‘Wally’ made some really big saves for us. I really liked his composure and battle level throughout the game, and as it went on. And I particularly like our group, our team’s response that we dug in when it wasn’t an easy night, but we found a way to win. And that’s important.”

Teuvo Teravainen, Ryan Donato and Ilya Mikheyev scored for the Blackhawks (21-23-9) who have lost three straight (0-1-2). Spencer Knight made 20 saves.

“I mean, it’s 3-0 lead. A little bit unfortunate,” Chicago coach Jeff Blashill said. “Yet, at the end of the night, when you take the emotion out of it, which is obviously we’re frustrated, you know, the chances we had were 23-14 us, you’re going to win that game 98 percent of the time. We just didn’t win tonight. But I think the thing you have to do is, I thought, that’s the best we’ve played in a while to be honest with you.

“We can’t feel sorry for ourselves because we ended up giving up a late lead and lost in the shootout, we’ve got to learn from it and be ready to play similar on Thursday.”

Teravainen gave Chicago a 1-0 lead at 1:19 of the first period, crashing the net and backhanding in a rebound after Connor Bedard had the initial tip. Teravainen had missed the previous six games with an upper-body injury.

Donato extended the lead to 2-0 at 15:14, scoring with a slap shot from the left hash marks after a turnover by Brock Faber.

Mikheyev made it 3-0 at 5:54 of the second period when he took a pass from Alex Vlasic at the offensive blue line and scored cleanly past Wallstedt.

“I like to think that the harder you work, the more bounces you earn,” Wallstedt said. “But I felt good. Personally, there's one that I should've saved, but the team had my back there and got us back. As soon as we have a 3-3 game, we're right back in and then all you see is the finish line. You just want to win that game."

Trenin cut the deficit to 3-1 at 12:33, coming off the half-wall for a wrist shot stick side.

Eriksson Ek brought the Wild to within 3-2 at 3:57 of the third period. Quinn Hughes took a shot from the point that went off Marcus Johansson’s skate right to Eriksson Ek at the doorstep.

“Obviously, that’s a good club over there,” Donato said. “They find ways to win games. I think we battled hard, we competed, we had our chances to finish it. And it’s unfortunate. Did a lot of good things tonight. I think we played well as a team. And it’s definitely hard to not get emotional about it and say we lost. But at the end of the day, I think we did a lot of good things. And we had some things to build on but we had to find a way to close it out.”

NOTES: Hughes has 10 points (one goal, nine assists) on a six-game point and assist streak. He is one game shy of the longest assist streak by a Wild defenseman (Spurgeon, 2021-22; Ryan Suter, 2013-14). … The three-goal comeback win was the first for the Wild since Feb. 19, 2024 (10-7 against the Vancouver Canucks).