Minnesota Wild pummel Chicago Blackhawks in Stadium Series win

The Wild haven’t had a lot of success in recent games, but their offense showed up to play early on in the game, and they were immediately rewarded with a goal.

Given the excitement of an outdoor game, the desperation the Wild are experiencing in the standings, and the Hawks position in the Central being threatened very closely by Dallas, this game has high energy written all over it. Will the Blackhawks cash in on their experience and earn their first victory over the Wild this season? Yeo’s job was saved last year when Devan Dubnyk joined the team and turned into a Vezina Trophy and Hart Trophy Candidate winning nearly every game, but this year hasn’t been the same so this is a huge game on so many levels for the Wild today.

The Chicago Blackhawks are coming off an exciting 5-3 win at Madison Square Garden when Artemi Panarin took over the third period, he picked up his first career hat trick and on a national broadcast which proved to the NHL why he’s the best rookie in the NHL this season.

Darcy Kuemper #35 of the Minnesota Wild makes a stick side save during practice day at the 2016 Coors Light Stadium Series on February 20, 2016 at TCF Bank Stadium in Minneapolis, Minnesota.

Michal Rozsival was assessed a five-minute interference and a game misconduct for his hit on Jason Zucker in the second period. Thomas Vanek added a power-play goal after an ill-advised Phil Danault retaliation on a clean hit by Dumba on Andrew Desjardins. It looked like Rozsival’s shoulder made contact with Zucker’s chin; Zucker fell hard onto the back of his head and needed help off the ice.

Scott Darling replaced Crawford in the third, and it didn’t make much of a difference given the way the Hawks defense was playing.

NOTES: Kane has three goals and five assists in his past five games…. Zach Parise leads Minnesota with 18 goals, Mikko Koivu has 30 assists and Charlie Coyle has 104 shots on goal.

The Blackhawks’ defense continued to struggle as the second period wore on, and they gave up another goal to extend their deficit to four goals. Four of those goals have come over in his last 10 games. The Blackhawks killed off a Brent Seabrook minor to start the period but Niederreiter scored not long after for a 3-0 advantage.