ST. PAUL, MN (AP) — Ryan Hartman scored with 1:11 remaining in the third period and the Minnesota Wild beat the Chicago Blackhawks 3-1 on Saturday.
Ryan Reaves and Frederick Gaudreau also scored for Minnesota, and Filip Gustavsson made 22 saves in goal.
The Wild have points in four straight after their franchise-record 14-game point streak was snapped on March 18. Minnesota moved into the lead in the Central Division by a point over Dallas, who lost Saturday to Vancouver.
“This is a game we should win,” Gustavsson said. “That’s what we said before, these two points are our points if we don’t play the wrong way. It was tight out there today. It didn’t feel like we really had the speed in the first period and it was kind of slow. We got a goal and we tried to ride it out, but they scored 1-1. And then Hartsy bailed us out today.”
Lukas Reichel scored for Chicago, which has lost four in a row. Former Minnesota goaltender Alex Stalock made 22 saves for the Blackhawks. Chicago is 3-9-2 since trading star Patrick Kane to the New York Rangers.
“Yeah, I thought the guys skated really hard,” Blackhawks coach Luke Richardson said. “Disappointing that they didn’t get at least a point, get to overtime. But you know, it was just an unfortunate bounce to the end. I think right from the start we played really in their way and frustrated them quite a bit.”
Without leading scorer Kirill Kaprizov, the Wild has gotten scoring from unexpected spots, including Reaves, the big enforcer who w
