Last night the Wild continued their dominance of the Honda/West Division bottom half teams with a 4-2 victory in LA. The trend of being outshot continued though for the Wild as they once again rode the hot hand of Cam Talbot and his 40 save performance.

There is cause for alarm as after tonight the next five games are against St. Louis (3) and Vegas (2) before hosting the Ducks for two and then finishing the season on the road in St. Louis for the final two games of the season.

The good news on that schedule is the Wild will be playing primarily playoff teams down the stretch getting them prepared for the post season and each game carrying significant meaning.

Kirill Kaprizov continued to impress last night with a couple more goals including his seventh on the powerplay. He is adding to the franchise rookie scoring marks nightly now and just think it was not that long ago that both Kaprizov and the Wild team were coming up empty with the man advantage.

That has turned around a full 180 degrees and it could not have come at a better time. We have known all along that in order to have consistent success, the powerplay needed to become a factor. It has and the team is now operating with tremendous confidence when the opportunities present themselves.

Now part of the struggles early on were personnel and some were misfortune as well. Things do have a way of evening themselves out as the season moves along. The Wild powerplay was notnas awful as the numbers were indicating and may not be as good as the recent success may be telling us either. No matter which is the real Wild powerplay, the fact is the success will continue to work in the favor of the mental aspect of the Wild game and serve them well knowing that they are and can be effective on the man advantage.

Tonight the Wild Wrap Up the season series with San Jose and Kaapo Kahkonen will get the start. The Wild need to pick it up for their rookie netminder and bring a better effort than they have in several of Kahkonen's recent starts.

There is no let up in the Wild team who have gone 7-2-1 over their last 10 as they try to close the gap between themselves and division leading Vegas and second place Colorado. The trouble is both of those teams have fared even better.

It's always Hockey Day in The State of Hockey!

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