Postgame: Back-to-back shootout wins for the Wild

Charlie Coyle's turning into a shootout rock star.

Just imagine 20,000-plus fans booing you as you skate in alone for a shootout attempt. I get distracted when one person looks at me as I write.

But for the third straight shootout attempt using three different variety of moves, Coyle buried it as the lone shootout goal tonight in the Wild's 3-2 win over the Chicago Blackhawks.

Asked what it's like to be all alone in the spotlight in a hostile arena, ChAHlie said, "It's cool. It's cool. You watch it, and you're out here now. It's kind of cool. Just try to zone in on what you're doing."

Coyle joked that he's running out of moves. He said he always has a few in his head and then last second makes the decision depending on what he's able to get the goalie to do. Today he went forehand, deke, backhand for a silky smooth one as the Wild grabbed back-to-back shootout wins on back-to-back days.

The bad news?

The Colorado Avalanche won, so the Wild remains one back of the Avs and out of a playoff spot as Colorado swept the same western Canadian trip the Wild swept in John Torchetti's first three games as coach.

Why's that big? Because the Wild has the second tiebreaker wrapped up on the Avs (head-to-head).

Anyway, entertaining game tonight here at the United Center.

Devan Dubnyk was real good in the first period, then the Nino Niederreiter-Erik Haula-NameYourWinger line continued its red-hot play of late in the second.

Justin Fontaine set up Haula between the circles, then Niederreiter banged home a Jordan Schroeder rebound for a 2-0 lead. Haula and Niederreiter each have career-best five-game point streaks and haven't missed a beat whether it's Jason Pominville, David Jones or Fontaine on their wing.

I'll write more about these guys in my Monday for Tuesday follow.

Just a great wraparound tied it.

But most impressive? The Wild didn't let that dejection kill em. The Wild outshot the Hawks 16-7, but Scott Darling made some brilliant stops on guys like Haula and Jared Spurgeon.

In OT, the Wild got a 4-on-3 power play, but pressing Zach Parise blew a wide-open net that could have ended things.

But in the shootout, Coyle scored and Dubnyk wasn't beaten by three studs, Jonathan Toews, Patrick Kane and Artemi Panarin.

Speaking of Kane, things got stirred when Matt Dumba caught Kane for not only a rare hit, but one when Kane was puck focused with his head down in the neutral zone.

Dumba won't be in trouble with the league. Ironically, the league just presented to the GM's examples of this hit where there is a full body check with unavoidable contact because the recipient put himself in position with his posture to get hit.

I tweeted that, started to get annihilated by Hawks fans, and then the league's VP of the Dept of Player Safety tweeted soon after exactly what I had just said.

Vindication!

Kidding.

Quotes:

He said, "Duby was fantastic, and we had a couple good chances to win that game straight up."

Torchetti added, "They're the Stanley Cup champions, so you better be ready or you're going to end up walking away with no points. You've got to be disciplined and focused for a 60-minute game. We were, and we've had back to-back nights of it."

On the Wild not giving up, Torchetti said, "Says a lot. Says that they want it. Some people have questioned us that we want it, but not me. I think we want it."

That's it for moi. Early flight back to Minnesota and it's after midnight, so I better get out of the United Center. No practice Monday, so no blog barring news.

L.A. Kings next. The Wild wins, it'll be in the eighth spot with the Avs having played one fewer game. Also, get ready: Niklas Backstrom made 21 saves for his first win in 14 months tonight for Calgary and will start Thursday's Flames game at Minnesota.