Postgame Hat Trick: Wild 5, Blackhawks 0

Wild.com's Dan Myers gives three takeaways from the Wild's 5-0 win against the Chicago Blackhawks at United Center in Chicago on Wednesday night:

1. The streak(s) continue
Kevin Fiala must feel like Bill Murray in the classic film Groundhog Day. Every single day, it's the same thing. And every game of late, he's scoring points.
Well, Wednesday was Groundhog Day and of course, as he's apt to do, Fiala found the scoresheet, earning an assist on Freddy Gaudreau's power-play goal early in the second period.

"Really nice [way] to finish the first half," Fiala said. "Everybody brought the focus here on the last game and just finishing off and going into the break. Really proud of the team."
That helper extended his consecutive games with a point streak to 12 games, which tied Mikael Granlund's franchise record. Fiala's streak is the longest active streak in the NHL and fifth-longest in the league this season.

"It's very cool, to be honest," Fiala said of earning at least a share of some franchise history. "But that's it, gotta keep going."
He'd add a goal in the third period, his 13th of the season, to cap a two-point night and make it a 4-0 game, a goal which essentially put a cap on the night.

"It's very fun and we're winning it feels like all the time," Fiala said. "It's the best thing; I can't describe the feeling. The confidence we have going into every game, no matter who we play, seriously it doesn't matter. We believe we will win."
After a scoreless first period that was largely dominated by the Wild, it was that goal that helped jumpstart Minnesota on this night. Gaudreau's tally was the first of three second-period markers as the Wild took a three-goal lead into the second intermission.
With the victory, the Wild extended its points streak as a team to 10 games, tied for the third-longest streak in franchise history and the longest since Minnesota went 11 games without a regulation loss back in November and December of 2019.

Lost in the evening's festivities, a solid game for Cam Talbot, who will head to the All-Star Game in Las Vegas this weekend off a 30-save shutout. He was great early in the game, keeping Chicago off the board long enough for the Wild to find its offense in the second period and pull away in the third.
Talbot's stop on Seth Jones in the dying seconds of the first period was perhaps his best of the season.

The shutout was Talbot's first of the year, third in a Wild sweater and 25th of his NHL career.
"Shutouts are a team stat, but wins are what's most important," Talbot said. "It's fun to throw one of those up every once in a while, but I'll take the win more often than not."
2. Not weird. Wild.
The latest Wild commercial actually came to life (sort of) on Wednesday night on Minnesota's third goal.
The ad, if you haven't seen it, features Kirill Kaprizov and Mats Zuccarello at the coffee machine passing a mug back and forth until Ryan Hartman finally puts an end to the shenanigans by stepping in, filling it with coffee and going on his way.

With the Wild ahead 2-0 in the second, Kaprizov and Zuccarello started their passing thing, with the former finding the latter, then going right to the slot, where Zuccarello fed Kaprizov for a blistering one-timer that Marc-Andre Fleury had no chance on.

The goal extended Kaprizov's point streak, officially, to seven games, although he now has a point in each of the past 12 games he's played in.
"We scored some nice goals, but we did some really nice things," Evason said. "We emphasize in between the second and third period. Obviously Kirill's goal was a beautiful play by Zucci, but what made the goal was how hard they tracked back. They got stick on puck, they worked to get that puck ... we've talked about this before, but the talk on our bench was reinforcing those kind of things as opposed to being real excited about the prettier plays."

For Zuccarello, the assist was his second point of the game following his 14th goal of the season earlier in the second, which came 2:03 after Gaudreau's lid-lifter. He's been on a multi-point tear of late, seeing his six-game multi-point streak end Sunday against the Islanders, a streak that had been matched only by Connor McDavid in the NHL this season.
He'll have to settle for multiple points in seven of eight heading into the break. Three of those games have come against Chicago, as Zuccarello has tallied two points in all three wins over the Blackhawks over the past 12 days.
3. Status check
The game on Wednesday marked Minnesota's 41st game of the season. It has 41 games remaining once it returns from the All-Star break on Tuesday night in Winnipeg.
The Wild enters the break in solid position in the Central Division, sitting all alone in third place and just one point out of second.
But that doesn't tell the whole story.

While Minnesota is looking up at two teams, the Wild is just one point back of the Nashville Predators for second in the division race but it has five games in hand. While the Wild's December schedule was ravaged with COVID-19-related postponements, Nashville came away relatively unscathed.
The Wild will have plenty of opportunities to make up for lost time in that regard, playing 40 games in 77 days to conclude the regular season.
Still, Evason refused to look much further than the immediate horizon, which is upon Winnipeg in the first game after the break on Tuesday night.
"I'm excited for the next game, I think that'll be awesome," Evason said with a wry smile. "I look forward to that. We get a break, it's a good time to have a break. We're gonna play a heck of a lot of hockey games coming up, basically every second night. So this rest will hopefully be used properly by everybody."
Minnesota is nine points back of Colorado for first in the division and has three games in hand But it also has a pair of head-to-head matchups against the Avs still to come, both of which will come in St. Paul. In a series that has been dominated of late by the home team, those games could be consequential.

In terms of the Western Conference race, Colorado, Nashville and Minnesota hold down the top three spots, with Pacific Division-leading Vegas tied with St. Louis for fourth with 57 points. In addition to being two points clear of the Golden Knights, the Wild has five games in hand.
Anaheim which is sixth in the West and second in the Pacific with 55 points, is four points behind the Wild and Minnesota has seven games in hand.
Minnesota is 10 points back of NHL-leading Florida, which has 69 points in 47 games. The Wild is tied for ninth in the league in points, but every single team in front of them has played more points - some several more games.
No matter how you slice it, the Wild has put itself in position to have a memorable second half to the campaign, thanks in large part to a pair of point streaks lasting at least nine games, the first time in franchise history the Wild has been able to accomplish that in an entire season, much less half a season.

Loose pucks

• The Wild's 28 wins in its first 41 games is a franchise record
• The shutout was Minnesota's seventh all-time against Chicago
• Gaudreau's goal was the first power-play goal of his NHL career
• Gaudreau assisted on Fiala's third-period marker for his second multi-point game of the season
• Minnesota has scored a power-play goal in five consecutive games, tying its longest streak of the season
• Greenway assisted on Zuccarello's goal and now has five assists in his past five games
• Brandon Duhaime also assisted on Zuccarello's goal and has points in back-to-back contests
• Fiala and Sturm scored goals 1:24 apart in the third period
• Fleury stopped 25 of 30 shots before being pulled with eight minutes left in the third period

Dan's three stars

1. Mats Zuccarello
   2. Cam Talbot
   3. Kevin FIala

Highlights