Wild fall in shootout to Blues

The Wild went down to St. Louis for round 2 against Mike Yeo and the Blues tonight. Unfortunately the Wild would not find the result they desired, but they would steal a point out from under the Blues with a late Charlie Coyle goal in the 3rd period to send the game to OT. The Wild would ultimately fail after a 4-round shootout and Mike Yeo would go 2-0 against his old squad.

The captain, Mikko Koivu would start the scoring in the game though, and put the Wild up 1-0 for the 1st period. This, despite being out-shot by the Blues 16-9 in the period. Koivu took a pass from Jason Zucker and flipped a wrister past Jake Allen from the top of the slot. Marco Scandella would earn the lone penalty in the first period for the Wild. He would actually be the only player for the Wild to land in the box during the game, making his return trip in the 3rd period.

Paul Stastny would score for the Blues in the 2nd period, bringing the game back level. Stastny’s goal was similar to Koivu’s. He shot from between the circles but a little closer in. The play was the result of Charlie Coyle trying to clear a puck from the defensive zone but it was picked off by David Perron who found Stastny who didn’t have a lot of room, but enough to light the lamp.

The game would not stay even for long. About 2 minutes later Erik Haula would break the tie and put the Wild back up by 1 once again. Nino Niederreiter would dump the puck deep in the Blues zone where Jason Pominville would find it. Pommer then put a sharp angle shot on net, Haula swooped in to clean up the remains.

The 3rd period would not start kind for the Wild. A pair of Jaden Schwartz goals just 63 seconds apart early in the frame would have the Wild playing catch up the remainder of the game. Schwartz’ first goal would come off a nifty deflection from a Perron shot. His second he flipped a rebound past Devan Dubnyk that managed to float back out in front of the crease and got a couple Wild defenders all turned around. His 2nd goal was also on a Blues power play.

The Wild managed to get back to level with a Charlie Coyle goal, a little redemption for his 2nd period blind pass mishap. Coyle tied the game with just 68 seconds left and an empty net for the Wild. The goal was not too different from the Haula goal scored earlier as well. It came on a nice cycle play where Jared Spurgeon pushed the puck down the boards to Koivu who in turn cycled it behind the net to Eric Staal. Staal then wheeled around and shot on goal, Coyle cleaned up the remains on Allen’s doorstep.

The game would go to overtime and right off the bat you could definitely tell the Blues had a plan of attack. They came into the zone right away and tried crossing up the Wild’s defense, it nearly worked. If not for a great stop from Dubnyk on a Stastny shot, the game would have been over almost immediately in overtime. The Blues on subsequent zone entries tried similar themes in their attack, but did not get as great of a chance as they did on their first attempt.

The game would go to a shootout, where David Perron would be the Blues hero in the 4th round. Shooters for the Wild tonight were, in order of appearance, Charlie Coyle, Zach Parise, Mikko Koivu, and Mikael Granlund. None would have any success.

So the Wild start their 5-game road trip off with a loss in St. Louis, but manage to grab a point in the gateway city. Next up, the big Western Canada road trip starting against the Vancouver Canucks on Tuesday before moving on the Calgary Flames on Friday and finally landing in Edmonton against the Oilers on Sunday, December 4th. Keeping in theme with the rest of the road trip, the Wild will close out their 5th game on the road playing the Toronto Maple Leafs Wednesday, December 7th.