COLUMBUS, Ohio -- The last time the Columbus Blue Jackets and Minnesota Wild met, the intensity of play came from two teams on franchise-record winning streaks battling to be the one that would keep rolling.

On Thursday, the tension came from a hard-fought battle between two of the top teams in the league, and the goaltenders did the heavy lifting.

Brandon Saad scored the lone goal early in the third period to give the Blue Jackets the 1-0 victory over the Wild at Nationwide Arena.

Sergei Bobrovsky stopped all 38 shots he faced for his fourth shutout of the season and career-high 33rd win of the season.

"That's a team you have to stay patient against because that is how they play: They wait for you to crack," Blue Jackets captain Nick Foligno said. "I was proud of us. I thought we bent, we bent a lot at some points, but we found a way to win a 1-0 game.

"That's a huge credit to Bob. He was outstanding. And we found a way to get a huge goal with 'Saader' making a great play to get us one, and then we held on."

Saad's score came 4:23 into the third when he carried the puck into the zone and fired from the right circle. Devan Dubnyk made the initial save, but the puck trickled out of his grasp, and Saad was there to tuck the rebound past the near post.

The goal was Saad's 19th of the season. It was the first score in 108:49 for the Blue Jackets, who lost 1-0 in overtime at Montreal on Tuesday night.

"I knew it got deflected going in, so it was tough for him to read," Saad said. "I just continued on going to the net, and it just kind of fell there and I tried to get a stick on it and somehow it found a way in for me."

Nick Foligno was credited with the lone assist.

Dubnyk finished with 39 saves for the Wild.

Columbus (40-16-6) swept the season series against Minnesota 2-0.

The Wild (41-15-6) thought they had a goal 7:23 into the second period when the puck got past Bobrovsky off a scramble, but it was determined that Erik Haula kicked the puck off William Karlsson's skate and the goal was overturned.

"That's a team that doesn't give up a lot of goals," Dubnyk said. "We talked about that before the game. We hit a couple posts and get a goal called back on a crazy rule, it doesn't make a lot of sense to me.

"(Goaltenders) have to change pants in the middle of the year to get more goals, but if a guy kicks a puck towards the corner of the (net) and it goes off somebody and in, that's not a goal. That's frustrating. That's the way the rule is written, and that's the way it is. But it was a good hockey game. You can't take anything away from them, they played great."

The teams traded power-play opportunities throughout the game, but neither could capitalize. Both teams went 0 of 4 with the man-advantage.

The Blue Jackets outshot the Wild 40-38 in their fifth shutout as a team this season.

The Wild pulled Dubnyk with 1:41 to play, but a Martin Hanzal elbowing penalty shortly after negated the man-advantage for Minnesota.

"I don't get it and as far as the last two calls," Wild head coach Bruce Boudreau said. "You want to give Hanzal an elbowing penalty in front of the net, that's great. But you have to give an embellishing penalty (to) the goaltender for throwing his head back as if somebody just shot a bullet and hit him in the head. That's freakin' awful."

Minnesota's Mikael Granlund saw his four-game streak with a goal end. He scored five times during that span.

NOTES: F Lauri Korpikoski and D Kyle Quincey played their first game with the Blue Jackets after joining the team via trades on Wednesday. ... The Wild are 15-2-2 in their past 19 road games. ... D Markus Hannikainen and D Scott Harrington were healthy scratches for Columbus. ... Minnesota scratched D Nate Prosser. Also scratched were F Zach Parise and F Jason Pominville, each of whom missed a third consecutive game with the mumps.