Wild get back on track with victory before holiday break

Any win, from blowout to shootout, that closed the book on the Wild’s worst rut of the season would have been an improvement.

But how the Wild finally shed their slump showed signs of the team that avoided such lulls for the first two months: They received depth scoring, stayed out of the penalty box and made the right plays at the right time in their 4-3 win over Chicago on Monday at Xcel Energy Center, the kind of palate cleanser that should recalibrate the Wild when they resume their schedule Friday at Dallas.

“We’ve been going at max capacity and really dialed in from training camp till now, and there’s been way more success than there has been failure,” coach John Hynes said. “It’s important for our group now to be able to get away from it for a few days, come off a win in a game that we played well, and then we just reset and get moving forward.”

This wasn’t a complete return to form by the Wild.

Aside from the fact they still aren’t at full strength — Joel Eriksson Ek, Jakub Lauko and Jake Middleton remain sidelined with injury — they weren’t as crisp as they’ve proved they can be; a botched breakout led to the Blackhawks’ first goal, and the Wild turned pucks over while playing a little too east-west.

Still, the good upstaged the bad.

Kirill Kaprizov was a presence, burying his 23rd goal to climb one back of Edmonton’s Leon Draisaitl for the NHL lead, but the Wild wouldn’t have been victorious if not for their third and fourth lines. They were factors on the Wild’s three goals that followed Kaprizov’s first-period score, giving the team much-needed secondary support.

Before captain Jared Spurgeon finished off a strong shift by the fourth line for a tying goal in the second period, Kaprizov had been on the ice for nine straight Wild tallies. The last time he watched the team score from the bench was almost two weeks earlier.

“Last games we were losing because we didn’t have that,” Yakov Trenin said. “It was big factor for this win.”

Trenin made an immediate impact after missing the previous five games with an upper-body injury, assisting on two goals — including Marcus Foligno’s empty-net game-winner — and the pressure he, Devin Shore and Ben Jones applied gave the Wild a definition to their lineup that had been lacking since Eriksson Ek was injured.

Shore, whose net-driving play in the first period created a Brock Faber goal that was overturned due to goaltender interference by Jones, had his best game since a mid-November call-up and earned an assist on Spurgeon’s goal.

“That’s kind of what we’re looking to do as the fourth line every night: create energy, play more down in their end,” said Shore, a veteran of more than 450 NHL games. “We’ve been doing a good job of that, creating that identity, [Monday] more than most for whatever reason.

“The puck kind of found us in good spots with speed and a little time and space, so we were able to make some plays with confidence.”

In rallying and holding off the Blackhawks, the Wild didn’t self-sabotage by taking any penalties, which is one way to cure their woeful penalty kill, and they were clutch when it mattered most.

Goaltender Filip Gustavsson, in his first game since sitting out four with a lower-body injury, was the beneficiary of a quick whistle on a puck that slipped through him and rolled in the crease behind him in the third period. But he also had timely stops early and late, steadying the Wild as they chased the lead and then protected it.

“He doesn’t wow you with a lot of crazy saves,” Ryan Hartman said. “But the ones he makes, he makes them count.”

Also key to the win was Faber’s go-ahead goal, the Wild’s assertive start to the third a turning point that had them in charge the rest of the way for only their second victory over their last seven games.

That decisiveness wasn‘t consistent while the Wild lost four in a row, but it’s one of their most fundamental traits when they’re clicking.

They’re a top-five team in the NHL because of how no-nonsense they skated early in the season, and rediscovering that style of hockey can keep them there.

“It was more of the recipe that gives you a chance to win,” Hynes said. “I was proud of the group.”