Minnesota Wild

Wild Ready for Familiar Foe as Playoffs Begin at the X
April 12, 2017, 11:40 AM ET [7 Comments]
Dan Wallace
Minnesota Wild Blogger • RSS • Archive • CONTACT
Wild Game Day
2016-17 Stanley Cup Playoffs
Round 1 Game 1

Series (0-0)

Wild Regular Season Record (49-25-8 106 pts) 2nd Place Central Division, 2nd Place Western Conference
Home Record (27-12-2)
Road Record (22-13-6)

St. Louis Blues Regular Season Record (46-29-7 99 pts) 3rd Place Central Division, 5th Place Western Conference
Home Record (24-12-5)
Road Record (22-17-2)

All-Time Record: Wild vs Blues
vs. St. Louis Blues 33-34-5
@ Home 21-14-2
@ St. Louis 12-20-3

All Time Playoff Record: Wild vs Blues
2015 Wild 4-2



Opponent: St. Louis Blues (32-27-5 69 pts)
Road Record (14-16-1)

Site: Xcel Energy Center, St. Paul, MN

Time: 8:30PM CT

TV: Fox Sports North (FSN), NBC Sports Network (NBCSN)

Regular Season Results:
10/13 Wild 2 @ Blues 3
11/26 Wild 3 @ Blues 4 (SO)
12/11 Blues 1 @ Wild 3
1/26 Blues 1 @ Wild 5
3/7 Blues 2 @ Wild 1

The time we have all been waiting for is finally here. The Stanley Cup playoffs, the greatest 2 months of the year begin tonight and for the first time since 2008 the Wild will open a playoff series at home in front of the passionate State of Hockey faithful.

It will be an electric atmosphere inside the Xcel Energy Center, and the product on the ice should be as entertaining and exciting from the drop of the opening faceoff. There is nothing like playoff hockey, where every play both good and bad is magnified. The deeper the series go the more heated they will become.

The Blues and Wild are familiar foes in every aspect of the game. And that is only elevated now as former Wild bench boss, Mike Yeo, leads the 2017 Blues into the X tonight.

Vladimir Tarasenko is the series' biggest game breaker and he has been a nightmare for the Wild in his short NHL career. Most notably scoring 6 goals and 7 points in the Wild's six game playoff series win over St. Louis 2 short years ago. Tarasenko had 39 goals during the regular season and finished tied for 3rd in the league in that category. His 75 points were good enough for 10th in league scoring as well.

The Blues added Vladimir Sobotka, who had been playing the last three seasons in the KHL. Sobotka scored his first NHL goal in just over three years in the Blues finale Sunday against Colorado. Sobotka adds some experience and could be a bit of an X factor for St. Louis, as the versatile forward can be used either on the wing or at center as well as on both the PK and PP, giving Mike Yeo some much needed forward depth, with the uncertainty of injured center Paul Statsny.

Bruce Boudreau and the Wild have gone to work in their first multiple day break since late February. Boudreau is a master of mixing and matching and throwing his lines into the blender spitting out different combinations almost nightly.

The latest combinations have Eric Staal, centering Zach Parise, and Nino Niederreiter, Mikko Koivu, with Mikael Granlund and Erik Haula, and Martin Hanzal, between Jason Zucker, and Charlie Coyle, and the fourth line centered by Joel Eriksson Ek, between Chris Stewart and Jason Pominville.

The odd guys out appear to be Ryan White, Jordan Schroeder, and Tyler Graovac. The Wild are a healthy group as the playoffs begin and the ice time is an ongoing competition. Play well, stay in the lineup, slip up and there is someone looking over your shoulder at your place in Boudreau's lineup.

The player matching is big come playoff time, and often is key but many times can be overrated as well as counterproductive. The Wild established through most of the season what kind of team they are and how they are most successful is by playing their game using speed and structured defensive zone play to generate puck possession and transition game.

When the Wild have gotten away from their game or fallen into the traps of their opponents, the results have become more of a crap shoot. Not at all the type of game the Wild want to play on a regular basis.

The focus of this series will fall squarely on the two men between the pipes at both ends of the rink. Of course we are all well aware of the accolades of Devan Dubnyk, since his arrival in Minnesota a couple years ago, but his playoff record (6-10) is not up to the standard that he has established during his 2 plus regular seasons in the State of Hockey.

Jake Allen is the clear number one in the Blues goal for the first time in his career and after a rocky first 2/3 of the season, has really turned his game around, since Mike Yeo took over as full time head coach. Allen finished the season on a personal 11-2-2 run with a .941 save percentage over that span. Allen has his own playoff demons to deal with, as he is just 3-5 in his playoff career with a .902 save percentage, which of course includes the 4 losses to the Wild in the opening round in 2015.

So lots of story lines and subplots, but now it is time to play the games and let this get decided on the ice.

It's Always Hockey Day in the State of Hockey!