Wild blank Blackhawks, 4-0, as Jesper Wallstedt earns shutout for first career NHL victory

CHICAGO — Jesper Wallstedt was much better in his second NHL game than his debut.

So were the Wild players in front of them.

They teamed up for a 4-0 victory over the Blackhawks on Sunday at United Center, with Wallstedt stopping 24 shots to become the first Wild goaltender to christen his first victory with a shutout that helped the Wild stave off mathematical elimination from the playoffs.

Their road trip continues Tuesday at Colorado.

In front of Wallstedt, who was called up from the minors Saturday, Kirill Kaprizov netted his 40th and 41st goals of the season in his second straight two-goal performance and added an assist to move into seventh place on the Wild's all-time scoring list with 323 career points.

After a scoreless first period, Kaprizov capitalized just 1 minute, 6 seconds into the second with a one-timer on the power play, which went 1 for 2; Chicago didn't receive any power plays.

This is Kaprizov's third consecutive season with at least 40 goals; he's the only Wild player in team history with multiple 40-goal seasons, and Kaprizov became the fourth NHLer to hit that mark in each of the last three seasons; Auston Matthews, David Pastrnak and Leon Draisaitl are the others.

Kaprizov is on a seven-game point streak, and he has 27 of those goals in his last 33 games.

At 12:30, Kaprizov factored into Marco Rossi's 21st goal, a setup by Mats Zuccarello that Rossi buried to sit one behind the Blackhawks' Connor Bedard for the most goals among NHL rookies.

Then with 1:33 left in the second, Frederick Gaudreau tipped in a Zach Bogosian shot.

Marat Khusnutdinov also assisted on the play, his second point in his 11th game with the Wild since coming over from Russia last month.

Kaprizov capped off the scoring at 8:10 of the third, roofing a Brock Faber feed over Chicago goalie Arvid Soderblom, who had 33 saves.

As for Wallstedt, he was calm, cool and collected in becoming the first Wild goalie to record a shutout for his first NHL victory.

Wallstedt was in net for the 7-2 loss at Dallas on Jan. 10 but was airtight in his return to the Wild crease.

He looked sharp in his positioning, even coming out to the top of the crease to aggressively take away ice, and Wallstedt was also poised when handling the puck.