The Minnesota Wild and the Chicago Blackhawks meet in NHL action from the United Center on Wednesday night.
The Minnesota Wild will look to build on a 5th straight win after a 4-3 win over the Islanders last time out. Kirill Kaprizov leads the Wild in scoring with 52 points including a team-high 34 assists as well as 18 goals while Ryan Hartman has 33 points with 18 goals of his own, 15 assists and a team-best +31 plus/minus rating this season. Marcus Foligno also has 17 goals while Mats Zuccarello has 40 points with 13 goals and 27 assists this season. Cam Talbot has seen the majority of Minnesota’s action in goal, going 17-8-1 with a 2.92 GAA and a .910 save percentage while Kaapo Kahkonen is 10-2-2 with a 2.53 GAA and a .922 save percentage this season.
The Chicago Blackhawks will be hoping to rebound from a 3-1 loss to Vancouver last time out. Patrick Kane leads the Blackhawks with 42 points including 11 goals and 31 assists while Seth Jones has 29 points including 26 assists and Alex DeBrincat also has 36 points with a team-high 26 goals this season. Marc-Andre Fleury’s gone 14-15-3 with a 2.86 GAA and a .910 save percentage in goal for Chicago this year while Kevin Lankinen is 2-5-4 with a 3.41 GAA and an .889 save percentage.
Minnesota is 5-0 in their last 5 games overall and 6-1 in their last 7 games as a road favorite while the over is 9-1-2 in their last 12 division games. Chicago is 2-6 in their last 8 home games and 1-6 in their last 7 games overall while the over is 5-0-1 in their last 6 games as a home underdog.
I get the case to be made either way here, but I’m not straying from Minnesota right now. The Wild have seemingly got back on track while the Blackhawks continue to stumble and fall farther and farther out of the race and farther and farther into the ping pong ball machine for the draft lottery. I look for Minnesota to pull it out here so give me Minnesota in this one.