Wild still confident after loss to Blues in Game 1 of West First Round

ST. PAUL, Minn. -- Things couldn't have gone much worse for the Minnesota Wild in Game 1 of the Western Conference First Round on Monday, a 4-0 loss to the St. Louis Blues at Xcel Energy Center.

But they're not close to pushing the panic button after their eighth straight loss to the Blues, including the regular season.
Teams that win Game 1 are 499-228 (68.8 percent) winning a best-of-7 NHL playoff series, including 6-2 in the first round during the 2021 Stanley Cup Playoffs. Game 2 will be played here Wednesday.
"This is gone," Minnesota coach Dean Evason said. "Obviously they're frustrated and disappointed with the outcome, but we've been frustrated and disappointed with outcomes before and we come back and keep doing what we do.
"We don't expect our group to be any different two days from now."
RELATED: [Complete Wild vs. Blues series coverage]
The Wild can look back to the 2021 postseason for motivation. They won Game 1 on the road against the Vegas Golden Knights but lost the first-round series in seven games.
"It's going to be a long series and we know how to play these guys," Minnesota forward Marcus Foligno said. "We won Game 1 in Vegas last year and it didn't shape out well for us, so it means nothing.
"You've got to forget about it. We have to go right back at it. We've got home ice again in two days. We liked our game for the most part of the game. We know we can beat this team. To get a split going back to St. Louis is the goal now. That's the message to stay with it and be positive like we've been all year."
In the days leading up to Game 1, various members of the Wild said that the three losses to the Blues during the 2021-22 regular season didn't matter, arguing one was in an outdoor game -- the 2022 NHL Winter Classic -- and the other two were road losses in overtime.
The playoffs, they said, would be different, especially because they had home-ice advantage.
It was different, but not in a good way. This game, unlike the others, wasn't close. At least not on the scoreboard.
St. Louis led 2-0 after the first period and cruised from there. Blues goalie Ville Husso, making his Stanley Cup Playoffs debut, made 37 saves for the shutout. The power play was lethal, scoring on each of its first two chances, and scored again two seconds after the expiration of another one.
Minnesota had issues killing penalties all season, finishing the regular season at a 76.1 percent success rate, 25th in the NHL. St. Louis set a team record for power-play efficiency this season, scoring on 27.0 percent of its opportunities, second in the League to the Toronto Maple Leafs (27.3).
Blues forward David Perron finished the night with a hat trick and an assist. Two of his three goals were scored with the man-advantage.

Wild goalie Marc-Andre Fleury made 27 saves but allowed three rebound goals. Fleury, acquired from the Chicago Blackhawks before the 2022 NHL Trade Deadline, earned the Game 1 start ahead of incumbent Cam Talbot, who helped Minnesota earn at least one point in 16 straight games (12-0-4).
Evason said Fleury played well Monday, but it's not a given that he will start Game 2.
"We'll revisit our entire group," Evason said. "We've got a lot of guys that we feel can play. We'll evaluate. We'll watch the game again and make a decision on who's going to go in Game 2. We've got options from our net to our defense to our forwards. We'll hopefully make the right ones."
Even with lineup changes, including in goal, on the table for Game 2, the Wild say they remain undaunted. They said they believe they controlled the game at 5-on-5 and were snakebitten around the Blues net, undone by the brilliance of a hot goalie and the cruelty of the three goal posts struck during the game.
"I think if you just look at the game and we had a lot of chances, and give credit to Husso, he made a lot of great saves," Foligno said. "There's just big moments in the game and they capitalized on them and we didn't. That's playoff hockey. There [are] moments in the game that are momentum shifts and they jumped on them and we had a chance to do it and we didn't do it. It results in a Game 1 loss.
"We're still going to be confident in Game 2 and stick with our game. Definitely have to stay out of the box and just really limit their chances that we just keep giving them. You know, 5-on-5, we're a better team."