Wild At Blues Game Preview: Is There Another Dominant Performance Coming?

Last night’s 5-2 victory over the Chicago Blackhawks was a strong win. Despite falling behind twice, the Blues dominated the stats sheet, posting 34 shots to Chicago’s 19, a 60% FO win percentage, a power play that went three for five (all in the second period), and blocked 15 shots. Vladimir Tarasenko (2G 1A), Kevin Shattenkirk (1G 2A) and Paul Stastny (1G 2A) all had a three point night, Alexander Steen had two assists, and Colton Parayko had for shots for the evening. The only weak link was Jake Allen, who allowed two goals for a .895 save percentage - but that’s one game, so it’s unfair to judge Jake on that one.

The Minnesota Wild have yet to play a game this season. Their new coach, Bruce Boudreau, is probably best known for having Alexander Ovechkin call him a “fat fuck” and for having BBQ sauce all over his face. He’s also best known for taking quality, solidly offensive regular season teams and then blowing the playoffs, usually in the first round. The Wild are not offensively gifted unless you count the acquisition of an aging Eric Staal as adding an offensive weapon.

The Blues hired former Wild coaches Mike Yeo and Rick Wilson this off-season. It will be interesting to see what, if any, knowledge about their old team will prove beneficial to the Blues tonight in putting away their opponent.

Carl Gunnarsson and Magnus Paajarvi are in tonight in lieu of Bortuzzo and Jaskin, and Jake Allen will be starting the second game of this back to back. Glad to see the NHL schedulers got one of them out of the way early in the season. The Blues have seven more of them to go.