St. Paul silenced as Blues blank Wild in Game 1
The Minnesota Wild have yet to find a way to beat the St. Louis Blues this season, having lost all three regular season games and then getting dumped 4-0 in front of silenced sellout crowd for Game 1 of the best-of-seven playoff series Monday night in St. Paul.
Special teams, juicy rebounds and three blistering shots dinging posts killed the Wild, who are 1-9-0 in their last ten against the Blues. Minnesota needs to find a way to beat their division rival in Game 2 Wednesday night or find themselves in an 0-2 hole heading back to St. Louis for Game 3, where they haven't won since the 2018-19 season.
Minnesota went 0-of-6 on the power play while the Blues scored on two of six power plays. Both Blues power-play goals were scored by David Perron, who added a third goal in the third period for his first career playoff hat trick.
Perron scored his first power-play goal on a juicy rebound following a save by Marc-Andre Fleury less than seven minutes into the opening period, He added a power-play goal to give the Blues a 3-0 lead late in the second period, and then put the game on ice at the 12:34 mark of the third.
The first goal of the #StanleyCup Playoffs belongs to David Perron. #stlblues pic.twitter.com/H7yDcn2hk4
— St. Louis Blues (@StLouisBlues) May 3, 2022
Power play is picking up where it left off in the regular season. #stlblues pic.twitter.com/xpMMODJ8O4
— St. Louis Blues (@StLouisBlues) May 3, 2022
Perron's third goal came seconds a Blues power play ended following a double-minor (4-minute penalty) on Kevin Fiala, who high-sticked Ryan O'Reilly in the face to slam the door shut on a Minnesota power play.
The other critical stat from the night was the Blues blocking 16 shots. Despite so many blocked attempts, the Wild still outshot St. Louis 37-31. But 27-year-old goalie Ville Husso pitched the shutout, albeit with a little puck luck as three Wild shots ricocheted off the pipes after sizzling by Husso.
Game 2 is Wednesday at 8:30 p.m. and will again be televised on Bally Sports North and ESPN.
Title: Bring Me The Sports co-owner, editor Email: joe@bringmethenews.com Twitter: @JoeBMTN Education: Southwest Minnesota State University Location: Minneapolis, Minnesota Expertise: All things Minnesota sports Nelson has covered Minnesota sports for two decades, starting his media career in sports radio. He worked at small market Minnesota stations in Marshall and St. Cloud before joining one of the nation's highest-rated sports stations, KFAN-FM 100.3 in the Twin Cities. There, he was the producer of the top-rated mid-morning sports show with Minnesota Vikings announcer Paul Allen. His radio experience helped blossom a career as a sports writer, joining Minneapolis-based Bring Me The News in 2011. Nelson and Adam Uren became co-owners of Bring Me The News in 2018 and have since more than tripled the site's traffic and launched Bring Me The Sports in cooperation with the Sports Illustrated/FanNation umbrella. Nelson has covered the Super Bowl and numerous training camps, NFL combines, the MLB All-Star Game and Minnesota playoff games, in addition to the day-to-day happenings on and off the field of play. Nelson also has extensive knowledge of non-sports subjects, including news and weather. He works closely with Bring Me The News meteorologist Sven Sundgaard to produce a bevy of weather and climate information for Minnesota readers. Nelson helped launch and manage the Bring Me The News Radio Network, which provided more than 50 radio stations around Minnesota with daily news, sports and weather reports from 2011-17.