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Whether it’s Swift Falls or St. Paul: Wild 4, Blackhawks 3

Three-goal leads … who needs ’em?

Posted on by Dave Melton
Credit: Matt Krohn-Imagn Images

The Blackhawks blew a three-goal lead and ultimately lost 4-3 in the shootout to the Minnesota Wild on Tuesday night in St. Paul.

Everything started off well enough for the Hawks, as Teuvo scored just over a minute into his first game back from injury for a quick 1-0 Chicago lead:

Later in the first, Ryan Donato was gifted a golden scoring chance and he capitalized with this blast from between the circles to make it a 2-0 Hawks lead:

In the second period, Chicago went ahead 3-0 when this excellent Alex Vlasic pass sent Ilya Mikheyev the other direction for this goal:

Minnesota’s comeback started about seven minutes after Mikheyev’s goal as Yakov Trenin torched Matt Grzelcyk in the neutral zone and then skated in for this goal:

About four minutes into the third, Quinn Hughes did some Quinn Hughes things to get a shot on goal and the resultant rebound was buried by Joel Eriksson Ek to make it a 3-2 game:

With two minutes left in the game and the Minnesota net emptying, Jared Spurgeon hopped on this loose puck near the side of the Chicago net and put it home to tie the game at three:

After a scoreless overtime — which included yet another failed Blackhawks’ power play — Minnesota won in the shootout thanks to a goal from Kirill Kaprizov as the Chicago trio of Nazar, Bedard and Donato didn’t score on their attempts.

Notes

Not sure what the answer is for curing whatever it is that’s ailing the Blackhawks power play but any and all ideas should be on the table now because they’d be hard-pressed to make things worse. The overtime 4-on-3 had some decent looks but that was probably the only time the Hawks threatened to do anything with the man advantage. This needs to get fixed, pronto.

Off to another shootout. Sixth shootout since Christmas. Third in the last four games. The Blackhawks have now come up empty on 22 straight power plays.

— Mark Lazerus (@marklazerus.bsky.social) January 27, 2026 at 9:51 PM

And that dreadful power play was especially frustrating in this game because the Blackhawks were largely excellent during 5-on-5 play, owning basically every statistic from Natural Stat Trick: 41-34 in shot attempts, 21-14 in shots on goal, 23-19 in scoring chances and 10-6 in high-danger chances. Chicago had an expected goal share of 62.6 percent in this game, the fourth best output from a game this season.

The driving force behind those possession numbers was the top line of Bedard, Nazar and Teuvo, which was easily Chicago’s best in this game. In 11:46 of 5-on-5 ice time together, it posted advantages of 16-6 in shot attempts, 11-3 in shots on goal, 9-3 in scoring chances and 6-1 in high-danger chances, all adding up to an expected goal share of 74.85 percent. And it largely did all that against the Wild’s top D pairing of Hughes/Faber. Certainly worth giving this group another look come Thursday.

Nazar and Bedard were especially noticeable, as Bedard finished with eight shots on goal while Nazar tallied four. The clip below is an example of the kind of on-ice magic those two can create together when Bedard’s hands and vision are complimented with Nazar’s vision and speed:

The video clip may not do it enough justice. When this breakout pass goes from Nazar to Bedard, the latter is with the puck at the red line and the former is at his own blue line:

Three seconds of game time, look at where Nazar ends up:

Hopefully Nazar can get a goal soon to break the dam that’s built up for him a bit. He and Bedard were certainly capable of doing so in this game but were probably just a bit unlucky to not have goals themselves.

Probably don’t say it enough but massive s/o to @BlackhawksFocus on Twitter, who always seems to clip the non-scoring moments that happen during the game and are worthy of discussion in this section of the recaps. For example: this excellent rush to the net by Wyatt Kaiser in the second period, who deftly dodged a few checks for this scoring chance. Kaiser’s been one of the team’s better (best?) players over the last few weeks.

The more I’ve thought about it, the less this loss has felt so miserable … stick with me for a minute here! Yes, blowing a three-goal lead is always going to be infuriating and shouldn’t be ignored, but it’s not like the Hawks sat back and let the Wild walk all over them in those final 20 minutes to get the win. Chicago owned all the possession stats for each period to go with its game-long advantages. As for the Wild’s goals … the first one is all on Grzelcyk, who won’t be here beyond this season and maybe even beyond the trade deadline. The second one could probably be prevented by Kaiser doing better to tie up his opponent near the net but it all starts with Hughes doing things only a few people on the planet can do to open up a shooting lane. The third one is a mad scramble that bounced in Spurgeon’s favor for a tap-in. Nothing there should cause long-term concern. One power-play goal probably puts this all to bed in Chicago’s favor but that’s another thing which can be fixed in the long run. If we’re focusing on process over results this season, a process that involves No. 98 and No. 91 teaming up to be the best line on the ice for a game isn’t the worst process in the world. Play like that more often and wins should follow.

Game Charts

Three Stars

  1. Joel Eriksson Ek (MIN) — 1 goal, 1 assist
  2. Connor Bedard (CHI) — 1 assist, 8 SOG
  3. Jesper Wallstedt (MIN) 32 saves on 35 shots, 3-for-3 in the shootout

What’s Next

The Blackhawks head east to face the Pittsburgh Penguins on the road at 6 p.m. on Thursday night.

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