ST. PAUL, Minn. _ The Blackhawks' top line of Jonathan Toews, Richard Panik and Nick Schmaltz continued their impressive play of late and led the Hawks to a 5-3 victory over the Wild.
Toews tallied his first hat trick of the season and a season high five points as Panik and Schmaltz each added a goal.
In the process, the line helped pull the Hawks to within five points of the Central Division-leading Wild, who got two goals from Mikael Granlund, and kept making the case to general manager Stan Bowman that a major trade for a top-line winger may not be necessary as the March 1 trade deadline approaches.
The Blackhawks got on the board thanks to goals from Toews and Panik in the second period.
Toews scored his 13th goal of the season 58 seconds into the period when he put home a rebound off a shot from Brian Campbell.
The Wild struck on a power play at 4:20 when Mikael Granlund scored in close on Corey Crawford after Duncan Keith could not clear the puck away from the net.
But the Toews line wasted little time in answering. This time Toews set up Panik with a pretty pass from behind the net. Panik converted on the shot from the slot for his 16th goal of the season.
The only thing missing for that line after the second period was a goal for Schmaltz, who rectified that 33 seconds into the third.
Toews won a faceoff in the offensive zone and kicked the puck back to Schmaltz, who fired it on net behind a sea of bodies. Dubnyk never saw it. He remained frozen in his stance as the puck whirred by him for a 3-1 Hawks lead and Schmaltz's fifth goal of the season.
Then the line converted perhaps its prettiest play of the night after Zach Parise scored to cut the lead to 3-2. Schmaltz skated with the puck behind the net, but he dropped a pass behind his back for Toews, who beat Dubnyk for his second goal of the night at 8:23.
The Hawks survived a late push from the Wild, who got two power-play goals from Mikael Granlund.
