Wild, Blues open best-of-seven playoff series Monday
No team is hotter than the Minnesota Wild entering the playoffs and they will have home ice where they have been dominant at the Xcel Energy Center when they open their best-of-seven playoff series Monday night against the St. Louis Blues.
Minnesota is 8-1-1 in its last ten games (the best most recent ten-game stretch in the league) and 19-2-3 since the middle of March, including an overtime loss to the Blues in St. Louis.
Here's the schedule for the series:
Getting home ice was a big deal for Minnesota because they have not won at St. Louis since the 2018-19 season. Minnesota dropped two games in overtime at St. Louis this season, and they lost all four games in St. Louis last season...and all three games they played there in 2019-20.
Only two teams – Colorado and Florida – lost fewer home games in regulation than Minnesota. The Wild went 31-7-2 inside the Xcel Energy Center, and they have one other "home" loss because of the Winter Classic beatdown by the Blues in sub-zero conditions at Target Field on New Year's Day.
How have Minnesota's games with the Blues gone this season?
- Jan. 1: lost 6-4 at Target Field
- April 8: lost 4-3 in overtime at St. Louis
- April 16: lost 6-5 in overtime at St. Louis
Throw in the fact that the Blues are 26-10-5 at home and you can see just how valuable starting the series in St. Paul is for the Wild.
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.