Wild to play Blues in first round of Stanley Cup Playoffs

The Minnesota Wild will play the St. Louis Blues in the Western Conference First Round of the Stanley Cup Playoffs.

Game 1 has not been scheduled. The playoffs begin May 2.
Which team gets home-ice advantage in the best-of-7 series remains to be seen. The Wild (50-21-7) and Blues (48-20-11) are tied for second in the Central Division. Minnesota has four games remaining; St. Louis has three left and owns the first tiebreaker with more regulation wins (42-36).
The Wild discussed the opportunity to get home ice after their 6-3 win against the Vancouver Canucks on Thursday at Xcel Energy Center, where they are 29-7-2 this season.
"We'd love it here, right? We've talked about our fans all year since Day One," Minnesota coach Dean Evason said. "I've mentioned it so many times, coming out before the game starts, six, seven people deep, it's exciting. Our players have to see that. We see it, we feed off that energy.
"If we don't get home ice, you're like, 'Oh, the pressure is on them and we can steal,' all that kind of stuff. So you can change the narrative. But we love playing here, our fans get us excited, we're excited to play here, we play well here. If we can play a seven-game series and have four here, that would be good."
The Blues swept the season series (3-0-0) against the Wild (0-1-2), outscoring them 16-12. They have won five straight against the Wild and are 12-1-1 in their past 14 games against them.
"It's a tough opponent for sure," Blues coach Craig Berube said after a 3-1 win against the San Jose Sharks on Thursday. "They've been playing really good hockey all year, they play with a lot of fire and spirit. They have some real good players over there with [forwards Kirill] Kaprizov, [Kevin] Fiala, guys like that. It's a solid team. It'll be a tough series and we're looking forward to it."

Kaprizov led the Wild with six points (three goals, three assists) in three games against the Blues this season. Forward Ryan Hartman was second with five points (three goals, two assists) in three games, and Fiala (two goals, one assist) and forward Mats Zuccarello (three goals) each had three points.
Goalie Cam Talbot made all three starts against the Blues, going 0-1-2 with a 5.92 goals-against average and .814 save percentage. Marc-Andre Fleury, who was acquired in a trade with the Chicago Blackhawks on March 21, played St. Louis three times with Chicago, going 0-3-0 with a 3.36 GAA and .903 save percentage.
Forwards Pavel Buchnevich (two goals, three assists) and Robert Thomas (one goal, four assists) led the Blues with five points in three games against the Wild. Forwards Brayden Schenn (two goals, two assists in two games), Ivan Barbashev (two goals, two assists in three games) and Jordan Kyrou (two goals, two assists in two games) each had four points.
Ville Husso was 2-0-0 with a 3.92 GAA and .892 save percentage in two games against the Wild this season, and Jordan Binnington was 1-0-0 with a 4.00 GAA and .879 save percentage in one game against them.
This will be the third playoff series between Minnesota and St. Louis. The Blues won in five games in the 2017 Western Conference Quarterfinals, and the Wild won in six games in the 2015 Western Conference Quarterfinals. In each instance, the lower-seeded team advanced.
The Wild, who have qualified for the playoffs for the third straight season, lost to the Vegas Golden Knights in seven games in the first round last season.
The Blues, who have qualified in four straight seasons, were swept by the Colorado Avalanche in the first round last season.