Faber breaks tie in 3rd, Wild edge Blackhawks to end 4-game skid

ST. PAUL, Minn. -- Brock Faber scored the go-ahead goal at 2:43 of the third period, and the Minnesota Wild ended a four-game skid with a 4-3 win against the Chicago Blackhawks at Xcel Energy Center on Monday.

Jonas Brodin found Faber in the high slot for a shot through traffic to give Minnesota a 3-2 lead.

“It’s huge for us, right? We’ve had some bad games in that so-called slump,” Faber said. “I don’t know, four games, five games, that happens throughout the year. Every team has lost four games. I didn’t think we played bad in some of them. We played bad in some of them. It’s a good reset for us, end on a good note, enjoy the holidays and come back refreshed.”

Kirill Kaprizov and Jared Spurgeon also scored, and Yakov Trenin had two assists in his return after missing five games with an upper-body injury for Minnesota (21-10-4) which had lost five of six.

“I liked a lot about tonight,” Wild coach John Hynes said. “…We played more of the style of game that we wanted to play. I just liked it. We were good. We were free with the puck. I thought we made plays, we came out, played to win the game, and we had the required effort, and I think the competitiveness that gives us the best chance to win most games.

“And then I thought throughout the line, and we talked about, we needed to find a way to get a win. Everyone had to take ownership of their own games. I thought everybody did that, and we had a strong team effort.”

Filip Gustavsson made 28 saves for the Wild in his first game since Dec. 12 after missing the past four with a lower-body injury.

“It felt fine out there,” Gustavsson said. “(The injury is) always going to be on your mind a little bit when you're back playing, and hopefully I can just keep playing, and it's going to fade away a little bit.”

Connor Bedard and Nick Foligno scored, and Taylor Hall had two assists for Chicago (12-21-2), which has lost two in a row after winning three straight. Arvid Soderblom made 23 saves.

“I thought it was little bit same story,” Blackhawks coach Anders Sorensen said. “Little bit late again. …The biggest thing I think is when the game is on the line, it’s a 2-2 game, right? We got to be willing to go and play offensively at the same time. I thought we sat back a little bit too much there.”

Faber scored off a rebound in the slot at 3:01 of the first period, but Chicago used a coach’s challenge and video review determined goaltender interference occurred when Ben Jones made contact with Soderblom.

Bedard gave the Blackhawks a 1-0 lead at 6:47 after retrieving a Mats Zuccarello turnover near the blue line and skating in along the right side for the goal.

Kaprizov tied it 1-1 at 11:11. Zuccarello’s shot went off the inside of the post and over to Kaprizov, who was wide open for a backdoor goal. It was Kaprizov’s 50th point of the season (23 goals, 27 assists).

Foligno put Chicago back ahead at 6:16 of the second period when he scored on a rebound on a 2-on-1 rush with Frank Nazar to make it 2-1. It was Nazar’s first NHL assist.

Spurgeon responded 49 seconds later to tie it 2-2 at 7:05, shoveling in a backhanded shot stick side.

After Faber's goal, Marcus Foligno scored into an empty net for Minnesota at 18:36 of the third period to push it to 4-2, but Jason Dickinson made it 4-3 with 33 seconds remaining with Soderblom pulled for the extra skater.

“We just kind of let it slip away a little bit,” Dickinson said. “Going 2-2 into the third period is not a bad place to be on the road. We give up that one point shot there to make it 3-2 and they’re able to sit back 1-1-1-3 and kind of control the pace of the play through the neutral zone and not really let us get in the zone, get any scoring chances. So, it’s kind of not something, not a position you want to be in.”

NOTES: Bedard increased his regular-season totals this calendar year to 16 goals and 42 assists for 58 points in 67 games. He tied Patrick Kane (20 goals, 38 assists in 58 games in 2008) for the third-most points by a Blackhawks teenager in a calendar year, behind Bobby Hull (19 goals, 42 assists in 61 games in 1958) and Eddie Olczyk (24 goals, 36 assists in 60 games in 1985). … Kaprizov established a new Wild record for fewest games to 50 points in a season (34 games), besting his previous mark set in 2021-22 (38 games).