Blues at Wild
THE STORY: The Minnesota Wild have turned some heads with their play recently. Not only has the team won three in a row, but it dominated the reigning Western Conference champion Vancouver Canucks in a 5-1 victory and took back-to-back games from the always-competitive Detroit Red Wings. Josh Harding has been in goal for each of the last three contests as coach Mike Yeo rides the hot hand. The Wild still don’t score quite enough for Yeo's liking (averaging 2.2 goals), but they can defend with the best of them and rank second in the league in goals against with an average of 2.0. That’s bad news for the St. Louis Blues, who visit Minnesota on Saturday. The Blues are last in the NHL in power-play percentage, converting just 7.8 of their opportunities. Instead of making up the difference on the other end in special teams, St. Louis is near the bottom on the penalty kill as well.
TV: 8 p.m. ET, FSMW (St. Louis), FSNO (Minnesota)
ABOUT THE BLUES (6-6-0): St. Louis gave up another goal on the power play on Friday night but made up for it thanks to T.J. Oshie, who recorded two goals and an assist in a 3-2 victory over Vancouver. None of those tallies came on the power play, however, and the Blues are stuck on three total goals with the man advantage.
ABOUT THE WILD (6-3-3): Minnesota exploded offensively against the Canucks, reaching five goals for the first time in 12 games. The Wild have tallied as many as three times in regulation just three times. Matt Cullen scored twice on Thursday, bringing his total to six goals. While Dany Heatley, Mikko Koivu and Pierre-Marc Bouchard have struggled offensively, Cullen and Devin Setoguchi have helped pick up the slack.
OVERTIME:
1. Minnesota took three of four meetings last season.
2. Wild RW Cal Clutterbuck struck a linesman with a blind punch during a fight on Thursday. He was given a 10-minute misconduct penalty.
3. Oshie has one goal and six assists in eight career games against Minnesota.