On Saturday the Wild extended their points streak to six games (5-0-1) with their come from behind 4-3 OT victory over the Blackhawks. That completed the sweep of the home and home with Chicago following Friday's drubbing of the Hawks 5-1.

Saturday was a much more competitive battle despite the Wild owning much of the territorial play, the Blackhawks had leads of 2-0 and 3-2 before the Wild evened the score with Kevin Fiala potting the trying marker with just over two minutes to play in the third period.

Fiala's goal was the Wild's 12th goal scored this season with the goal tender pulled. That is an astonishing statistic when you consider the Wild have trailed in games where Evason has pulled his goalie 16 times. This is not your ordinary team when it comes to the extra attacker and Evason and the Wild analytics team have done a tremendous job giving the Wild opportunity to score late and earn points that otherwise would have been lost.

Another fact in this equation is that Evason has a feel for the players to have on the ice and in some cases not using a time out in those situations. He has anonymous trust up and down the lineup and often sees a timeout as a way for the opposition to rest players who may be a bit gassed. That was the case Saturday when it was Fiala delivering in the clutch.

Tonight Cam Talbot returns to the Wild net as the Wild are now down to just two on the injured list. Jonas Brodin and Nick Bjugstad are the two still out of action.

Talbot's return is key as the Wild will need both goalies to be sharp as the schedule is going to get crazy busy from here on out. Kaapo Kahkonen has been superb filling in for Talbot and I believe he has actually played himself into a 1 and 1A situation for the Wild.

We had talked about that last season when Kahkonen played well in Talbot's two extended absences, but this year is a bit different as Kahkonen is no longer a rookie and the quality of his play has been raised significantly. Talbot has been good this season but not quite to the level he played at last season, and if there was some question marks about the Wild through the first third of the season that would be the top issue raised.

Montreal is simply the worst team in the NHL ranking 32nd in offense and 31st in team defense. Quite the surprise from the team that went to the Stanley Cup Final last season. Now we can confirm that was a complete aberration and that they simply caught the right opponents at exactly the right time, combined with the other worldly play of Carey Price.

That said Price has not played yet this season and the Canadiens are far from legitimate contenders for the playoffs let alone another deep run. This is a game where the Wild need to come out and play their game, not get into any bad habits and take care of business.

You can bet on it that Evason and his staff will have the team ready and all they have to do is look back a few weeks when they took a much better Sabres team lightly and ended up losing in a shootout.

It's always Hockey Day in The State of Hockey!

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