Wild at Blues
Minnesota's season-long seven-game road trip continues Saturday against St. Louis but gaps in the schedule before and after playing the Blues allow the Wild to return home twice. Minnesota split the first two games of the trek, losing to Vancouver 5-2 on Monday before bouncing back with a 4-3 victory over Edmonton on Tuesday, and after Saturday doesn't play again until Tuesday versus San Jose.
“We’ve talked about it being broken up, so that’s a nice thing for us,” Wild goaltender Devan Dubnyk (5-2-2, 2.19 goals-against average, .937 save percentage) told reporters about the road trip. “I’d say most of the guys prefer that.” Minnesota has won six of its last seven games after a 1-2-2 start as it hangs with the big boys in the Central Division. St. Louis, meanwhile, sits last in the Central but is riding its first winning streak of the season after defeating Chicago 7-3 last Saturday and Vegas 5-3 on Thursday, improving to 2-1-0 during its season-long seven-game homestand. "We're just connected more as a group," Blues goaltender Jake Allen (4-2-3, 3.88, .878) told reporters. "Before we had spurts, but spurts aren't good enough in this league."
TV: 8 p.m. ET, FS North (Minnesota), FS Midwest (St. Louis)
ABOUT THE WILD (7-3-2): Eric Staal (four goals, 10 points this season), who has 399 career goals, has recorded multi-point games in two of his last three contests with both goals coming on the power play while Mikael Granlund has scored four of his team-high six goals in the last five contests. Nino Niederreiter recorded two assists Tuesday, although he hasn't scored in 25 games (playoffs included), but coach Bruce Boudreau told reporters: “I was really happy. I was hoping he would score an empty-netter. He got two assists. Those other things will come because he works hard.” Defenseman Ryan Suter has a goal and two assists in his last two games, joining Granlund and Zach Parise (club-best plus-6 rating) for the team lead with 12 points.
ABOUT THE BLUES (4-4-3): Ryan O'Reilly (team-most 15 points) is riding a six-game point streak (all three goals this season, eight assists) and has won 62.3 percent of his faceoffs, second to Dallas' Jason Spezza (64.4) among those with more than 32 trips into the circle. Robby Fabbri recorded an assist and was plus-2 in his first NHL game since Feb. 4, 2017 following his second ACL surgery, telling reporters: "It was exciting. It was exciting for me and my family. They were all together watching tonight. It's just great to get back in the lineup with the guys. It makes it even more special. We got a big win tonight." Oskar Sundqvist scored his first two goals of the season Thursday in his third game after recovering from an illegal hit to the head by Washington's Tom Wilson during the preseason while defenseman Carl Gunnarsson played 13 minutes, 52 seconds in his season debut after recovering from ACL surgery.
OVERTIME
1. Minnesota improved to 15th in the NHL on the power play (20.5) through Thursday's games after going 5-for-13 with the man advantage over the last three games while its No. 6 penalty-killing unit is 25-for-27 in the last six contests.
2. St. Louis boasted the fourth-best power play in the NHL at 29.8 percent entering Friday with Vladimir Tarasenko (four) and David Perron (three) scoring half the man-advantage goals.
3. Minnesota has won three straight meetings by a combined 16-6 with Staal scoring five goals - three on the power play - in last season's four-game series, giving him 11 tallies and 20 points in 23 contests versus St. Louis.