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There is precious little separating the Minnesota Wild and St. Louis Blues in their best-of-7 Western Conference First Round series.
Though the Wild earned home ice and pulled four points ahead of the Blues on the final day of the regular season, the similarities between them are stunning.
They played three times in the regular season, two going past regulation. The other, a 6-4 Blues victory in the 2022 Discover NHL Winter Classic, was played outside in bitter temperatures at Target Field.
"It's exciting. Every battle we've had against them has been extremely intense and physical," St. Louis forward Ryan O'Reilly said. "It's going to be a great series. Starting on the road, I don't think it changes that. It is what it is. We've got to be ready to go."
The Blues have yet to play this season at Xcel Energy Center, where the Wild are 31-8-2. Minnesota believes that can be an advantage in a series that presents very few clear-cut margins.
"I mean, our record speaks [for] itself here," Wild goalie Cam Talbot said. "We're a different team when we are in front of our fans and get our matchups and we've got a couple of good lines that can shut teams down and we've got two extremely good lines that can score goals.
"So when we get our matchups and stuff like that, we're a little bit more dangerous and playing in front of our fans and the momentum shifts and stuff like that, we can feed off of that in a series like that. That means a lot for our group."
St. Louis and Minnesota combined to score 28 goals in the season series. The Blues have nine players who scored at least 20 goals, led by Vladimir Tarasenko's 34 and a team-high 82 points. Pavel Buchnevich scored 30 goals. Robert Thomas has a team-best 57 assists.
"I think this team is the best I've seen at putting the puck in the net," said O'Reilly, who scored 58 points (21 goals, 37 assists). "We get momentum offensively it's quite dangerous and playoffs is obviously going to be a lot tighter, tougher checking, but I'm excited. I like our group and excited for this challenge against 'Minny,' who's playing unbelievable hockey. It's going to be a war."
For Minnesota, it is the top line that is the engine.
Kirill Kaprizov scored a Wild record 108 points (47 goals, 61 assists). Mats Zuccarello scored 79 points (24 goals, 55 assists) in 70 games and center Ryan Hartman had 65 (34 goals, 31 assists). That's 105 of the 305 goals Minnesota scored this season.
"I know in the playoffs, every game, every shift is kind of all out, so I think we're going to be ready," said Kaprizov, who had three points (two goals, one assist) in a seven-game loss to the Vegas Golden Knights in the 2021 Stanley Cup First Round. "I know we're going to be ready as a team to go out there and to play really physical, really good hockey every single shift, every single game.
"To be honest, it's not about the fancy plays and all the really interesting things we do on the ice. It's all about the little plays, the battles in the corner, the small things we do. If we can continue to do those things right and continue to win our battles and win our shifts and ultimately help the team win, that's what we need to continue to focus on."
With two regulation goals separating the two teams after their regular-season series, each is expecting a long, demanding first round and embracing the challenges it will bring.
"You saw how we played them down the stretch here, and it's been some great games back and forth," Minnesota forward Tyson Jost said. "It's going to be a great series. We're excited for it and we're looking forward to that."
Game breakers
Wild: Kaprizov has been a handful since he arrived in the NHL at the start of the 2020-21 season, which ended with him winning the Calder Trophy voted as NHL rookie of the year. This season, he was better. He became the first player in Wild history to score 100 points. His 47 goals this season led the Wild and were fifth in the NHL.
Blues: Tarasenko reemerged as one of the most dangerous offensive players in the NHL after a two-year, injury-induced absence from the list. On a team full of prolific scorers, nobody has been more lethal than Tarasenko, who also led the Blues with 230 shots on goal. Tarasenko was limited to seven goals in 34 regular-season games during the past two seasons but is now playing at the level that saw him score at least 30 goals in five straight seasons from 2014-19.
Goaltending
Wild: It is an embarrassment of riches since the Wild acquired Marc-Andre Fleury before the 2022 NHL Trade Deadline. Fleury won the Stanley Cup three times with the Pittsburgh Penguins and went to two other Cup Finals, most recently with the expansion Vegas Golden Knights in 2017. Since arriving to Minnesota, he is 9-2-0 with a 2.74 goals-against average and .910 save percentage. He has also lit a fire under Talbot, the incumbent who is 8-0-3 with a 2.25 GAA and .925 save percentage since the deadline.
Blues: It appears that Ville Husso has seized the No. 1 job from incumbent Jordan Binnington, one of the heroes of the run to the 2019 Stanley Cup title. Husso earned the lion's share of the work down the stretch of the regular season and has been the better goalie, going 25-7-6 with a 2.56 GAA and .919 save percentage. Binnington went 18-14-4 with a 3.13 GAA and .901 save percentage. He is 9-8-1 with a 3.45 GAA and .891 save percentage since Jan. 1.
Numbers to know
Wild: The penalty kill has struggled for much of the season and finished at 76.1 percent, 25th in the NHL and worst among the 16 playoff qualifiers. That could be more glaring because the Blues power play was 27.0 percent, second behind the Toronto Maple Leafs (27.3). It's also concerning that Minnesota was the third-most penalized team (354 taken) during the regular season.
Blues: St. Louis mastered the comeback this season, taking points from 12 of 22 games (8-10-4) when they trailed after the first period. Their .364 points percentage in those situations was fourth in the NHL. Conversely, they are 37-3-3 when leading after two periods.
X-factors
Wild: Matt Boldy. The rookie did not report to the Wild until a callup from Iowa of the American Hockey League on Jan. 6. He has been virtually unstoppable as a second-line wing, scoring 39 points (15 goals, 24 assists) in 47 games. Maple Leafs forward Michael Bunting, a candidate for the Calder Trophy given to the NHL rookie of the year, is the only rookie with more points (44) in that span. Boldy gives the Minnesota offense length it did not have before he arrived.
Blues: Nick Leddy. On a team full of offensive luminaries, it a defenseman, that could be the difference-maker. Leddy was acquired before the deadline for depth purposes but played 21:03 per game in a top-four role. He can provide a bit of offense, especially as part of the rotation on the power play and has been solid in all facets of the game.
They said it
"This is the best room I've been a part of. And I think we don't have the record we do if we don't jell that way. We have a lot of talent in that room, but it's all about coming together. And I think it's noticeable, more noticeable when you see trade deadline guys come in and fit right in. That's just nice to see. We're proud of that. We're proud that we can have that identity as a team that can bring in guys and guys want to be here and feel special when they're here. I think in order to win a Stanley Cup you have to be a close room and I think we have that for us heading into the playoffs, for sure." -- Wild forward Marcus Foligno
"I think we know we have enough firepower to know when to get [a goal] when it's necessary. We should be comfortable in tight games and that's what playoffs is going to be. We're excited for that." -- Blues forward David Perron
Will win if ...
Wild: They stay out of the penalty box. Minnesota doesn't have the players on either side of the equation to win a series dominated by special teams. No team in the playoff field allowed as many 5-on-4 goals as the 60 given up by the Wild. The Blues led the NHL in 5-on-4 goals with 63.
Blues: They find adequate goaltending. The offense is all-world, and the defense is above average, so it will be goaltending that proves to be the difference-maker. Binnington is the incumbent and has experience making a long playoff run but was inconsistent. Husso has been more consistent but has never appeared in an NHL postseason game.
The star players for the St. Louis Blues and Minnesota Wild will take center stage Monday night in Game 1 of their Western Conference first-round series in St. Paul, Minn.
Minnesota features forward Kirill Kaprizov, who finished fifth in the NHL in both goals (47) and points (108) in just his second season in the league.
St. Louis counters with forward Vladimir Tarasenko, who finished outside the top 20 in the NHL in goals and points but enters the postseason on a tear.
He produced 11 goals, including four game-winners, and totaled 24 points in 16 games during the month of April.
Tarasenko has been operating on the same line with Robert Thomas and Pavel Buchnevich. Thomas had a 17-game point streak that ended in late April and tied for the longest in the NHL this season.
Kaprizov has been working well this season with Mats Zuccarello, who is expected to play in Game 1 after sitting out the past four games to nurse a lower-body injury.
Zuccarello, 34, set career highs in assists (55) and points (79) in his 12th NHL season.
"Even from training camp, you could just tell Kirill liked Zuccy's style of play," Wild forward Marcus Foligno said. "Kirill is as creative as can be. Zuccy, too. That's one thing that is so special about those guys is just the creativity level."
The Tarasenko and Kaprizov lines shouldn't have to carry all the burden either.
The St. Louis trio of Brandon Saad, Ryan O'Reilly and David Perron has been known to take games over on both ends of the ice.
"They know they have to produce, and they've done a good job defensively, playing against top lines, getting hard matchups, starting a lot of D-zone faceoffs," Blues coach Craig Berube said. "On the other side of things, they've all got 20-plus goals."
If the Blues manage to shut down the Kaprizov line, Kevin Fiala is coming off his best NHL season, totaling career highs in goals (33) and assists (52) while playing all 82 games for the first time in his eight-year NHL career.
Foligno, who scored 23 goals to dwarf his previous NHL career high (13), injured his knee in a 4-1 win against the Colorado Avalanche on Friday, which earned the Wild home ice for the first round.
Foligno returned to practice on Sunday and is expected to play in Game 1, but the team will make that decision on Monday.
"I feel pretty good skating wise," he told reporters after practice. "I wouldn't be out there if I didn't feel like I could play."
St. Louis is expected to have center Brayden Schenn back in the lineup after he missed the past four games with an upper-body injury.
Schenn was limited to 62 games this season, but still managed 24 goals and 58 points.
Berube and Minnesota coach Dean Evason did not reveal their starting goalies for Game 1.
Minnesota is likely to go with veteran Marc-Andre Fleury, who started four of the last five games for the Wild.
Fleury was 9-2-0 with a 2.74 goals-against average and .910 save percentage in 11 starts following his trade from the Chicago Blackhawks in March.
The Blues are expected to start Ville Husso, who went 9-0-2 over an 11-game stretch before losing the regular-season finale against the Vegas Golden Knights.
