The Blues and Wild meet for Game 4 tonight at Xcel Energy Center in Minnesota for another late start at 8:30 p.m. CT on NBCSN and on FS-MW in the St. Louis viewing area. Here’s to hoping that Game 3 was the absolute worst that we see from the Blues. The Wild were excellent in a 3-0 home win and took the lead in the best of seven series 2-1.
Like I stated, the Blues play in Game 3 was about as bad as I have seen in a while. Everyone knew that Xcel would rocking and that the Wild were going to come out fast. The Blues had to get through the first 10 or so minutes and I thought that they played a decent, not great, defensive road period to start. The Wild outshot the Blues 9-4 in the first, but many of their shots were not quality scoring chances and the Wild again blocked a few Blues shots. The first ended in a 0-0 tie and that was a big win for the Blues, or so should have been.
Getting out of that first period in a 0-0 game with that much anticipation should have swung momentum towards the Blues. It didn’t. The Wild would break the tie on a goal off the rush. Alex Pietrangelo made a nice move in the Wild zone and was tripped by Mikael Granlund. The Wild grabbed the puck and beat a caught Blues team down the ice and converted. Direct result of the goal was the missed call. That said, the goal did not cost the Blues the game. They didn’t reel it in and get any momentum back and it was all Wild after the goal.
The Wild were all over the Blues and winning all of the races to loose pucks. The Blues were terrible in the neutral zone and just fed the transition game of Minnesota. Pucks weren’t getting deep and even when they did, the Blues were not close to getting them back. The effort was atrocious and some of the puck decisions were awful as well. Minnesota exited their zone all night with great decisions and crisp passing. It caused the Blues to chase all night. Not a recipe for success for this squad.
Jake Allen was great in goal again and gave up two or less for his tenth straight game. The team in front of his, all around, needs to be better.
Game 4 proves to be as close as a must win as there is, without it actually being an elimination game. The Blues do not want to go down 3-1 in this series against this very good, very confident Wild team. Getting the series even at 2-2 going back home would give the Blues a huge boost of confidence. If they are going to do that, they will have to be better in every aspect of the game. Better puck decisions in the neutral zone are key. If the Wild hold the lines and clog the middle, it is dump and chase hockey. If they back in, skate it in. Pretty easy concept, execution is key. Puck support, where there was none on Monday, will be vital.
The Blues are a much better team when they have possession and cause the opponent to chase the game. Getting pucks deep and establishing a cycle game proved to work well in Game 2 and the Blues never got it established in Game 3. It all starts with effort and being hard on loose pucks. The effort will need to be at a maximum from every Blue. Getting to the dirty areas and getting to some rebounds to keep sustained offensive pressure will be important for a Blues victory tonight.
Jake Allen will be in goal once again and it is unclear what the lineup or lines will be for the Blues tonight. I think they will go with the what they did for most of the season. Steen-Backes-Oshie, Schwartz-Lehtera-Tarasenko, Berglund-Statsny-Jaskin. That is if there are no lineup changes. I could see Jokinen getting in tonight for Goc or Jaskin. We will see. I expect a much better effort out of the team tonight. Time to even the series and come home.