Wild's win streak reaches six games with shutout over Chicago

CHICAGO — The Wild isn't the best team in the NHL, but it goes into the All-Star break as the league's best team of late.

After blanking the Blackhawks 5-0 on Wednesday in front of 16,373 at United Center, the Wild owns the longest active win streak in the NHL at six and joins Colorado and Pittsburgh as the only teams to record more than one six-plus game win streak this season.

Overall, the Wild (28-10-3) sits third in the Central Division with games at-hand on the rivals it's chasing, and it closes the first half on a season-long 10-game point streak.

"Good job from everybody bringing focus here on the last game and just finishing off and then going to the break," Kevin Fiala said. "Very proud of the team."

Goalie Cam Talbot made 30 saves for his first shutout of the season, Mats Zuccarello and Frederick Gaudreau picked up two points apiece and Fiala had a goal and assist while pushing his career-best point streak to 12 games to tie the Wild record previously set by Mikael Granlund in 2017.

"It's very cool, to be honest," Fiala said. "But that's it. I've got to keep going."

The rout started in the second period, with Gaudreau kickstarting the offense on the power play at 4 minutes, 53 seconds. The team finished 1-for-1, and Chicago went 0-for-1.

By 6:56, the Wild was ahead by 2 after Zuccarello capitalized on a rising shot put in motion by Jordan Greenway, his fifth assist over his last five games. Then Zuccarello became the playmaker, pulling up off the rush to make a slick pass to Kirill Kaprizov for a one-timer at 14:08 that sealed his team-leading 19th goal on the brink of his first All-Star Game appearance.

"Obviously, Kirill's goal was a beautiful goal [set up] by Zuccy," coach Dean Evason said. "But what made the goal is how hard they tracked back. They got stick on puck. They worked to get that puck. The talk on our bench was reinforcing those type of things as opposed to being real excited about the prettier plays."

BOXSCORE: Wild 5, Chicago 0

The goal also extended Kaprizov's point streak to a career-high eight games. He has 13 points in that span, and only six NHLers have more points than his 53.

He'll be joined at the All-Star Game by Talbot, who was making just his third start since missing most of January with a lower-body injury.

"Shutouts are a team stat, but wins are what's most important," said Talbot, whose 18 wins are a career high for the first half of the season. "Certainly nice to throw one of those up every once in a while, but I'll take the win more often than not."

This was Talbot's 25th career shutout and third with the Wild. At the other end, Marc-Andre Fleury blocked 25 shots for the Blackhawks and was pulled in the third period after giving up goals to Fiala (10:38) and Nico Sturm (12:02).

Fiala's goal was his 13th and ninth during his point streak, which is the longest active in the NHL. He has three multi-point efforts over his last four games.

And with an assist on the play, Matt Boldy has six points during his career-long four-game point streak. He's the first skater in Wild history to post at least 10 points through his first 10 NHL games among those who debuted with the team. Since 2012-13, only five NHLers have posted more points through their first 10 NHL games than Boldy.

NHL standings: Conference | Wild Card

Collin Delia, who replaced Fleury, stopped five shots in relief.

After the All-Star break, the Wild will start the second half of the season Tuesday at Winnipeg.

"It's just been a lot of fun this year playing behind this group and being a part of this group more so," Talbot said. "We've got just a great group, and everyone comes to play every single night and you can count on the guys in front of you and beside you.

"So, when you've got guys clicking the way that we're going right now and everyone's having fun when they come to the rink, it's just that's what hockey's all about."