Wild Warmup: Minnesota vs. St. Louis, Game 2

The essentials

ST. PAUL -- The Wild and Blues spent the final month of the regular season battling nightly for home-ice advantage for their First Round series in the Stanley Cup Playoffs.
Minnesota outlasted St. Louis, securing home ice on the final night of the regular campaign, an advantage that melted away on the first night of the playoffs.
Now the Wild will try and salvage a split at home before the series shifts to Enterprise Center when the Central Division rivals collide for Game 2 of their best-of-7 series Wednesday night at Xcel Energy Center.
The Blues won 4-0 in Game 1 on Monday night, but the final score doesn't tell the whole story. Minnesota outshot St. Louis and mostly outplayed the Blues at 5-on-5, which is how the Wild would prefer the game be played.
But a few undisciplined penalties put the Blues on the power play and goaltender Ville Husso was outstanding in his first NHL playoff start. St. Louis scored twice with the man advantage, one other time two seconds after a power play expired and killed off all six Wild power plays in defeating Minnesota for the 13th time in the past 15 meetings dating back to the start of the 2019-20 season.

"Special teams killed us," said Wild coach Dean Evason. "Five-on-five, we were real good. Real good. In both zones, all three zones, five-on-five. We just didn't play there. We were four-on-four a ton ... We were power play or penalty kill. And not a secret, they have not been good this year. So if we're going to have success, obviously, they have to get better."
Perhaps the best player on the ice for either team was Husso, who finished with 37 saves in his postseason debut, outdueling a future Hall-of-Famer, Marc-Andre Fleury, in the process.
Husso had 57 games of NHL experience total, including the regular season, entering the game, while Fleury's 90 wins in the postseason alone are fourth-most all-time in NHL history.
Fleury was solid too, making 27 saves and another on a penalty shot, to keep the Wild at least in the game through most of two periods.

"Their goalie played great. Ours played great," Evason said. "They got a couple bounces on their PP but it can't be a 6-6 game or we're not going to have success."
While the Wild did a good job of slowing the Robert Thomas, Pavel Buchnevich, Vladimir Tarasenko line -- a group that was one of the NHL's best over the final two months of the regular season -- David Perron netted a hat trick and had an assist on a goal by Ryan O'Reilly to spur the Blues attack.
Defenseman Torey Krug had three assists in the game.
St. Louis worked effectively through passing lanes and pounced on a couple of uncontested rebounds in building a 2-0 lead after one period.
Minnesota went 0-for-3 on the power play in the first period and that inability to answer back ended up setting the tone.
Perron scored his second of the night in the second period to make it a three-goal game headed to the third, and he pounced on his final goal of the game midway through the final frame to provide the final margin.

"Honestly, it's just came right to him, he didn't have to do much, he had an open net twice and he scored," said Wild forward Kevin Fiala. "We just have to stay out of the box. We really don't want to challenge them on the PP and our PP. It doesn't say our PP is worse or our PK is worse than them, I think it's just that we have a better chance of winning the games if it's 5-on-5."
The Blues power play finished the regular season second in the NHL, connecting on 27 percent of its chances. St. Louis had the best road power play during the regular campaign and flexed that muscle against Minnesota in Game 1.
The Wild was the third-most penalized team in the NHL during the regular season and its combined special teams was at the bottom of the 16 playoff teams.
None of this is new to the team, and it knows keeping things 5-on-5 is Minnesota's easiest path to evening the series and eventually winning it.
Now it's a matter of executing that game plan.
"I think that's usually the plan. Obviously there's times when stuff happens but for us as a team, 5-on-5 is where we play our best hockey," said Wild defenseman Jared Spurgeon. "I think we gotta be better just playing hard between the whistles."
Evason wouldn't say whether he'll come back with Fleury in Game 2, but indicated he and the Wild coaching staff will re-evaluate the lineup ahead of Wednesday's game.
Minnesota does have a couple of extra healthy defensemen, including Alex Goligoski, that could scratch into the lineup.
If Cam Talbot earns the start in goal, he hasn't lost in regulation since March 1, a span of 17 games and 16 starts. He's gone 13-0-3 during that stretch.