Wild get the Blues in their road finale, falling in St. Louis
ST. LOUIS – Opportunities can come your way when you least expect them, in the most unlikely of places. For a half-dozen Minnesota Wild prospects, an opportunity arrived on a muggy weeknight night in Missouri.
In their final road game of the regular season, the Wild rested many regulars and patched together a lineup that fell behind, took a lead, fell behind again and ultimately lost to the St. Louis Blues 6-3 on Monday. Leading 3-1 in the second period, the Wild surrendered the next five unanswered as goalie Filip Gustavsson was touched for five or more goals for the second consecutive start.
He finished with 17 saves in the loss as Minnesota went 0-3 on its final road trip of the season. Nick Foligno, Danila Yurov and Michael McCarron scored for the Wild, who finished their regular season road slate with a 23-14-6 mark away from Grand Casino Arena. “I thought some of the puck play we had in the danger areas of the ice was a little bit loose, so I didn’t like that.
But I did like some other components of the game,” Wild coach John Hynes said. Minnesota hosts Anaheim in the Wild’s regular season finale on Tuesday. The visitors’ lineup versus the Blues was reminiscent of a preseason game, with defenseman Zach Bogosian still missing due to a lower body injury, and nine regulars given a night off.
The voluminous healthy scratch list included Matt Boldy, Jonas Brodin, Joel Eriksson Ek, Brock Faber, Marcus Foligno, Ryan Hartman, Quinn Hughes, Kirill Kaprizov and Mats Zuccarello. Added all up, that was 486 points missing from the visiting team’s line chart. In their place were five recent call-ups from the Iowa Wild and rookie defenseman Viking Gustavsson Nyberg making his NHL debut, as well as some lesser-utilized members of the NHL roster.
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