ST. PAUL, Minn. -- By nearly every metric, the Minnesota Wild should have rolled to an easy victory over the Chicago Blackhawks at Xcel Energy Center on Thursday.

But perhaps the most important metric of them all -- the one between the pipes -- was on Chicago’s side.

Corey Crawford was fantastic, stopping 42 shots -- 18 in the second period alone -- as the Blackhawks won 4-2.

“That was a goalie win,” Blackhawks coach Joel Quenneville said. “They were the better team tonight for sure and we dodged a bullet.”

Minnesota outshot the Blackhawks 44-20 for the game, including a 37-10 margin over the final two periods. And don’t discount Crawford's first period, either: He made at least two saves on point-blank opportunities to keep the Wild off the board long enough for his teammates to provide some offense.

“We wanted to score first. It was important not to be down by a goal to start the game again,” Crawford said. “I think that set the tone for the game, being ahead and not playing catch-up hockey.”

Catch-up hockey is all the Hawks have been playing lately. Entering Thursday, Chicago had allowed the first goal in six straight. Patrick Sharp snapped that streak 5:08 into the game, scooping up a loose puck and burying it behind Minnesota’s Niklas Backstrom for his ninth goal.

After a major penalty on Thomas Vanek for boarding Marcus Kruger, Patrick Kane scored an important separation goal, making it 2-0 Chicago heading to the first intermission.

All of a sudden, the team that couldn’t score first appeared on its way to a runaway victory.

“I think it was important for us to get off to a good start. I think the last few games, we’ve been getting down by some goals and it’s tough to always play catch-up hockey,” Crawford said. “Once in a while, being down, OK, you can come back. But we definitely needed a good start here and we needed to score first and we did that.”

But Minnesota owned the rest of the game, beginning with the first shift of the second. The Wild’s top line buzzed Chicago’s net and scored 1:03 into the period on a pretty setup by Jason Pominville to Jason Zucker in the slot, where he rifled the puck past Crawford, who didn't have a chance.

And the Wild didn’t let up.

Minnesota peppered Crawford with 19 shots in the second and 18 more in the third, as Crawford channeled Semyon Varlamov's performance from Tuesday, when he stopped 54 Chicago shots in a 2-0 Avalanche win at the United Center.

Kick saves, glove saves, pad saves -- Crawford was in the zone Thursday from the opening drop.

“I was just trying to find the puck. They were getting some traffic in front, I was just trying to look around traffic and to battle as hard as I could through screens and stuff, especially on their power play,” Crawford said. “They were playing with a lot of energy. We were able to weather the storm there and get some more goals when we needed them.”

Chicago scored on its first shot of the third period, 6:20 in on a big blast by the newly promoted Bryan Bickell. Quenneville moved Bickell up from the third line to the second Thursday, next to skilled forwards Kane and Brad Richards. The big man made sure to reward his coach’s confidence.

Including his empty-netter with a minute remaining, Bickell now has four goals in his past five games.

“It's nice to get some confidence and get [Quenneville] to believe and know that I can be on the ice,” Bickell said. “I appreciate the opportunities. ... I know goals come in bunches, so I just need to keep my nose down and dirty and keep playing.”

Minnesota took advantage on a 5-on-3 power play late in the game, as Pominville rifled a one-timer past Crawford that ricocheted off the crossbar and in. Still facing 1:54 of the man advantage after the Wild narrowed the margin to 3-2, Crawford made sure the lead -- and the victory -- stood up.

“Big win by our team, but he was at the center of it. Huge game by him. Especially after the way we played in front of him,” Kane said. “Usually, we find a way to outshoot our opponents and hold the pace and play of the game. That wasn’t the case tonight. Minnesota took it to us and he stood tall in there.”