CHICAGO – The Wild kept their flickering hopes of picking up a Central Division title alive.
They barely avoided getting upset by the Blackhawks, rallying to win 4-2 Monday in front of 15,268 at United Center to move two points back of Dallas and Colorado in the race for first place.
"I know the odds are against us for first place," Marcus Foligno said, "but if we keep winning the next two games, we'll see what happens."
Still, the Wild have work to do. The Stars owns the tiebreaker against them, and Colorado have one game at-hand.
But a pair of goals from Marcus Johansson in the third period made a climb out of third still possible.
"It wasn't pretty, but we got it done," Johansson said. "But not good enough this time of year."
After getting outplayed most of the night and trailing 2-1, the Wild flipped the script on an upset when Johansson scored a franchise-record 14th shorthanded goal 14 minutes into the third period.
For an encore, Johansson completed the comeback with 3:13 to go when he deposited a give-and-go pass from Matt Boldy behind Chicago goalie Alex Stalock.
Gustav Nyquist added an empty-netter with 1:01 to go for his first goal with the team in just his second game after after a should injury delayed his debut following a Feb. 28 trade.
"Thankfully we got the two points, and we played better in the third," Johansson said. "But we need to play better from the start."
All this came after Foligno fought Andreas Englund and was ejected in the aftermath.
"Sometimes stuff like that can spark a team," Foligno said. "More just myself to get going. It was great to see the response from the guys."
Before then, the Wild's performance was uncharacteristic but so was their lineup.
They left four of their best players in Minnesota, with Kirill Kaprizov, his linemate Mats Zuccarello as well as captain Jared Spurgeon and Jonas Brodin resting. Without those tone-setters, the Wild were dominated by the Blackhawks at the end of the first period and all the second.
"We have a good enough team to still go out and play better than we did tonight even though we're missing some guys," Johansson said. "We still have something to play for."
Chicago began its takeover after Boldy stuffed his own rebound around Stalock at 12:32 of the first for his 31st goal of the season.
With only 1:49 left in the period, Joey Anderson eluded the Wild defense to poke in a loose puck in the crease.
That was only a preview of what was to come.
"Just a lot of passengers and guys not willing to get into battle," Foligno said.
The Blackhawks peppered goaltender Filip Gustavsson with shots in the second, putting 22 pucks on net compared to a measly five for the Wild. They capitalized on a Wild turnover seconds before their second goal: Gustavsson blocked a Buddy Robinson shot but Anders Bjork directed in the rebound at 2:23.
"It was sloppy, and they were better than us," Johansson said.
But giveaways weren't the only issue.
The Wild's posture was shaky, even on a line change. They received their first of two power plays early in the third, but botched that chance, too. The best look actually came from Chicago, with Jason Dickinson picking off a pass to skate in for a shorthanded breakaway that Gustavsson denied.
Gustavsson ended up with 39 saves, while Stalock had just 18.
The Blackhawks appeared to double their lead when they scored on a delayed penalty, but captain Jonathan Toews' goal was overturned after the officials determined the Wild had possession before Toews' shot.
Chicago failed to capitalize on the ensuing 5-on-4 opportunity and blanked on a third chance that came after Foligno was assessed an unsportsmanlike conduct penalty for holding up Englund's helmet following their fight.
"I got his head," Foligno said. "It felt like a little bit of a 'Gladiator' moment there. The boys had a good laugh about it. You just get revved up in the moment. I was just ticked off."
The fight was the result of Englund calling a hit Foligno dished out earlier "dirty," Foligno said.
"To be on the power play and then someone says something to you and with the way the game was going, it wasn't a fun game," Foligno said. "I thought we just sat back and played a try-not-to-get-hurt game and then when you do press, you see what happens. It's good on the guys to respond that way."
What happened next could become even more significant as the last week of the regular season plays out.
"He got us going," Johansson said of Foligno. "Happy that he's OK, but you never want to have that happen just to get us going. A lot of credit to him stepping in, doing that, and got the bench going, got the guys fired up. Definitely helped."
The Wild also had a "talking-to" in the second intermission, Foligno said, and coach Dean Evason said it was assistant coach Bob Woods that delivered the message.
"There's still things to play for here," Evason said. "We still have to play hard. We still have pride in our dressing room, and what happened in the second period wasn't positive obviously and how they took it to us. We challenged them, and they responded."
