Wild Game Day number 64 Wild Record (42-15-6 90 pts) Home Record (23-8-1)
Opponent: St. Louis Blues (32-27-5 69 pts) Road Record (14-16-1)
Site: Xcel Energy Center, St. Paul, MN
Time: 7:00PM CT
TV: Fox Sports North (FSN)
Last Season results: 10/10/15 Blues 2 @ Wild 3 10/31/15 Wild 2 @ Blues 3 (OT) 12/31/15 Wild 3 @ Blues 1 2/6/16 Wild 1 @ Blues 4 3/6/16 Blues 4 @ Wild 2
Last result: 10/13 Wild 2 @ Blues 3 11/26 Wild 3 @ Blues 4 (SO) 12/11 Blues 1 @ Wild 3 1/26 Blues 1 @ Wild 5
Mike Yeo makes his return to Minnesota for the first time as a head coach of an opposing team tonight, when he guides his Blues team against his former Wild team. He finds himself in all too familiar territory though as the Blues are fighting for their playoff lives much as Yeo's Wild teams have had to do in each of the past four years.
The Wild on the other hand find themselves in a much better position atop the Central Division and Western Conference, but the task at hand is still the same. That is keep winning because the Blackhawks are not going anywhere.
The battle testing of the past four seasons is going to serve the Wild well, as will the heartache of playoff series lost. There is no substitute for experience and the Wild have had a lot of experience in meaningful games the last four seasons and as the weather gets warmer the games become more heated.
This Wild team is better prepared to handle the tougher games, but there are no guarantees in the NHL. The games must be played to determine who gets into the dance and who gets to have home ice, and just who plays who. So tonight it is the Blues coming to St. Paul, before the Wild embark on a challenging 5 game road trip that will take them to Florida for two with the Lightning and Panthers, then to Chicago for the big one on Sunday. It gets no easier after that as the Wild then travel to Washington to take on the NHL leading Capitals, before winding up the trip in Carolina, which is no easy task despite the Hurricanes record.
The Blues got off to a 7-1-0 start under Yeo, then they dropped their next five, before shutting out the Avalanche on Sunday night. So which Blues team is going to show up tonight, is it the team that we saw in late January when the Wild skated off with the 5-1 victory or will it be more like the team that plays a very structured defensive Mike Yeo system like the Blues did right after the coaching change took place?
Either way it is a Central Division rivalry game and records are tossed out. It is Blues Wild, Yeo vs. his former team, two teams battling for playoff positions albeit not the same position but the same urgency for sure.
It's always hockey day in the State of Hockey!
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