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Blackhawks Can't Stop Jared Spurgeon, Lose To Wild 3-2

The Chicago Blackhawks took on the Minnesota Wild for some Black Friday matinee action. With Chicago beating Minnesota at United Center earlier this month, the Wild were looking for a big revenge game.

Things went well early for Chicago. They had another fast start as Ryan Donato made it 1-0 at 2:23 of the first period. In the second period, Donato scored his second of the game to make it 2-0. Connor Bedard and Alex Vlasic made a nice play to set up a great lane to the net for Donato.

From there, things went poorly for the Hawks. At 10:22 of the second period, Marco Rossi was the beneficiary of a brilliant play he helped make with Marcus Johansson and Kirill Kaprizov. The goal got the Wild on the board for the first time.

17 seconds later (10:39), Jared Spurgeon scored his first of the season. Minnesota’s captain picked a great way to celebrate his birthday. Suddenly, the Wild looked like they had a chance to win when they were losing by two 18 seconds earlier.

Spurgeon wasn’t done celebrating his birthday there. He scored his second of the game 17:33 of the second period. With the 3-2 lead, Minnesota was ahead of the Blackhawks for the first time this season.

With no goals scored in the third by either team, that 3-2 score would hold as the final. The Wild improved to 15-4-0 while the Hawks dropped to 8-13-2.

This was another example of the Blackhawks playing well early, having a multi-goal lead, and finding a way to lose anyway. These types of late-game blunders have cost Chicago a lot of points this year.

On the second Spurgeon goal, Blackhawks goalie Petr Mrazek had it hit his glove off a harmless shot and it went to the back of the net. It was certainly one that he’d like to have back. He’s played extremely well this year but that wasn’t his finest moment.

One positive to take away from this game was the play of Connor Bedard. After finally scoring a goal in their most recent game, he came into this one feeling confident.

In addition to having an assist on the second Donato goal, Bedard made seven shot attempts, four on goal, and was a very explosive-looking player on every shift.

The Hawks' next game is another day game. On Sunday afternoon, they will host the Columbus Blue Jackets at the United Center.

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