The Minnesota Wild headed to St. Louis to play the St. Louis Blues and continue their 7-game road trip. The Blues are 2-1-0 (W-L-OTL). They started their season with 3 straight road games, beating Seattle & San Jose (in OT) but losing to Vegas, with every game decided by 1 goal.
The Minnesota Wild were again without F Joel Eriksson Ek & D Jared Spurgeon. F Marcus Johansson was a game-time decision.
2024-25 Minnesota Wild Schedule and Results
1-1-1 (W-L-OTL) (4 points)
2024-25 St. Louis Blues Schedule and Results
2-1-0 (W-L-OTL) (4 points)
Minnesota Wild F Kirill Kaprizov will almost assuredly become the franchise leader in Most Power-Play Goals by the end of the season since he’s just 11 away from number 11 Zach Parise. He’s at 58 right now and he still has to pass F Marian Gaborik (59) & F Mikko Koivu (60). Kirill has had 14, 17 & 19 Power-Play Goals in the past 3 seasons, respectively. He hasn’t been shooting as much or, at least, getting his shots to the net as much but we know he will.
Alright. Enough words. Let’s…
Drop the ClutterPuck!!!
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Here’s how the teams lined up:
Status Report
The Wild could dress 11 forwards and seven defensemen. … Eriksson Ek, a forward, and Spurgeon, a defenseman, each will miss a second straight game. … Johansson, a forward, is questionable. … Hunt, a defenseman, was recalled from Iowa of the American Hockey League on Monday and could make his season debut.
Status report
Saad will make his season debut and play on the top line after his wife Alyssa delivered the couple’s third child, a daughter named Lyra, on Thursday. … To make room for Saad on the roster, Texier, a forward, was placed on injured reserve Monday. … Kapanen, a forward, will be a healthy scratch.
Game Recap
1st Period
Three & a half minutes in and St. Louis F Alexey Toropchenko gets called for a high-sticking penalty on Brock Faber and the replay showed the official saw something that didn’t happen. Unfortunately, there’s no video* unless you watch it on ESPN+ & this link will take you to a few seconds before the play happens in the near corner of the Minnesota defensive zone.
*Should the NHL post replays of all penalties immediately on social media or do the officials take enough of a verbal/social beating as it is? Of course, we want to see what the call was and if it was a good call but the NHL could have a #RefCam to show the referee’s angle and that might show why he/she thought it was a penalty. Officiating is not easy & if you think it is and you can skate, you should go officiate a scrimmage or maybe just skate around like an official and watch for penalties & everything else an official has to do.
Noooo… it was the same official who called the phantom penalty on Jonas Brodin and yes, I looked.
Like the Wild’s game vs Seattle, a goal was scored on the power play to pour salt in the bad-penalty-call wound. (It Stings! Why would you pour salt on a wound? To GET ANSWERS!!! WHO DOES NUMBER TWO WORK FOR? Oops. Is that wrong?)
Brock Faber brought the puck into the neutral zone and made a pass back to Kirill Kaprizov off the left boards that was close to being a turnover but Kap got to it before the Blues player who was close to it but he had to chip it off the boards to avoid a turnover. He then skated to the offensive blue line and Blues D Colton Parayko poke-checked the puck away but it went up and hit Kirill’s right elbow and came back in front of him to allow him to keep possession as he cut toward the middle of the zone. Blues D Nick Leddy & F Radek Faksa were watching him and the puck so Wild F Ryan Hartman skated behind both of them and received a beautiful pass from Kirill for a mini-breakaway and a 1-0 lead as Hartman beat Blues G Jordan Binnington for his 2nd goal of the season.
3:50 – Goal-PPG – Minnesota – Ryan Hartman (2) from Kirill Kaprizov (4) & Brock Faber (2)
Minnesota Wild 1 | 0 St. Louis Blues
The period would end at 1-0 and the shots were 6-4 in favor of St. Louis.
2nd Period
Wild F Frederick Gaudreau, who we call Freddy the Stick because he’s good with his stick on the penalty kill and takeaways, had a bad stick when he went for the puck and missed and tripped Blues F Mathieu Joseph.
On the power play, the Blues had a shot that was deflected wide and ended up behind the Wild’s net so D Jonas Brodin was the first to it and he hammered it around the left corner. Blues D Justin Faulk went to the boards to keep the puck in the zone but it took a fortuitous bounce and landed next to Wild F Marat Khusnutdinov so he was able to get the puck and head up the ice with fellow PKer, F Jakub Lauko, who had a lane to get behind Justin Faulk. Khusnutdinov fed him so he could get in alone on the goalie but Blues F Jordan Kyrou was backchecking hard to try to disrupt him. Lauko saw him so he put his left arm out & moved to his left to protect the puck and knocked Kyrou down then roofed a shot over Binnington for a 2-0 Wild lead! LAUKOOOO!!!
A different angle shows how much Jakub Lauko punished Jordan Kyrou on that play and the quick shot for his 1st goal of the season and his 1st goal as a member of the Minnesota Wild! Is he a bigger, better Connor Dewar? Too soon?
7:52 – G0al-SH – Minnesota – Jakub Lauko (1) from Marat Khusnutdinov (1) & Jonas Brodin ()
Minnesota Wild 2 | 0 St. Louis Blues
30 seconds later, the Blues had a good scoring chance on the Power Play off a Jordan Kyrou one-timer but Wild G Filip Gustavsson made the save then he saved another chance on a tip play in front of the net and appeared to have covered the puck so the official blew the whistle after a second or two but the puck squeaked through and Kyrou buried it but the whistle had already blown so… NO GOAL!
With seconds remaining in the period, the Blues had the puck in the offensive zone and it came back to the left point to former Wild D Ryan Suter for a shot… and…
NO GOAL!
The Blues outshot the Wild 13-8 in that period for a 2-period total of 19-12.
3rd Period
Early in the 3rd, the Minnesota Wild had some offensive pressure and it looked like the Blues were going to easily break out of the zone but Kirill Kaprizov got his stick in the lane of Blues D Nick Leddy’s breakout pass and the puck hit it for a turnover and Marco Rossi quickly tried to get open. Kaprizov passed it behind him to an oncoming Mats Zuccarello. He then hesitated to make it look like he was going to shoot then went to his backhand and tried to pass it back to Kaprizov and the pass went off Leddy’s skate, through the crease to the other side where Marco Rossi fired it into the top part of the net.
0:46 – Goal – Minnesota – Marco Rossi (1) from Mats Zuccarello (2) & Kirill Kaprizov (5)
Minnesota Wild 3 | 0 St. Louis Blues
Just past the halfway point of the 3rd period, the Wild had a breakout pass turnover of their own and it allowed Blues F Mathieu Joseph to get a free shot on Gustavsson and he made it count to get the Blues on the board.
10:10 – Goal – St. Louis – Mathieu Joseph (1) from Zack Bolduc (1) & Philip Broberg (3)
Sometimes, especially with a big lead late in a game, you just want to get the puck out of the zone. The saying goes, “Get it Out! Get it In!” meaning get the puck out of the defensive zone and get it into the offensive zone by dumping it in so the opponent has to go all the way back beneath their goal line to get the puck. Young Wild F Liam Ohgren could’ve easily thrown the puck off the boards on a backhand to get it out of the zone but he tried to skate to the middle of his own zone. Before that, D Declan Chisholm could’ve passed the puck behind the net to his defensive partner Jon Merrill and he would’ve had plenty of time to breakout the puck out or just flip it out of the zone. But… it quickly turned into a turnover and Declan Chisholm chose to let Mathieu Joseph take a shot even though the other Blues players were pretty covered so he should’ve gone to defend Joseph immediately.
Minnesota Wild 3 | 1 St. Louis Blues
With 4:03 remaining in regulation, Blues D Philip Broberg got his stick up high on the follow-through of a cross-check and hit Ryan Hartman in the nose with his stick. It drew blood so it was a double-minor for high-sticking that pretty much took St. Louis out of the game but… they still pulled the goalie with 34 seconds remaining and…
With 4:03 remaining in regulation, Blues D Philip Broberg got his stick up high on the follow-through of a cross-check and hit Ryan Hartman in the nose with his stick. It drew blood so it was a double-minor for high-sticking that pretty much took St. Louis out of the game but… they still pulled the goalie with 34 seconds remaining. Blues F Pavel Buchnevich fired a slapshot at the net from the neutral zone with 14 seconds left right to Wild G Filip Gustavsson. He caught it, quickly through it on the ice and took a shot at the empty net and…
19:51 – Goal-PPG – Minnesota – Filip Gustavsson (1) – Unassisted
So… the lesson is to keep playing until the final buzzer on both sides of the puck. Know the situation and if your net is empty, don’t shoot it right into the goalie’s glove so he has time to take a shot. That’s a deserved minus for Buchnevich. For all those “it’s not a big deal” readers, they pulled the goalie so they can work on that situation if/when it comes up later in the season, not so you can do what Buchnevich did.
Minnesota Wild 4 | 1 St. Louis Blues
Rumor has it Wild G Marc-Andre Fleury called “a quick goalie meeting” to tell the Gus Bus to shoot the puck if he gets it. “I should” and he did and now he’s the 18th goalie to score a goal in the National Hockey League, the 3rd goalie to score a power-play goal and the 1st goalie to score a goal in Minnesota Wild franchise history!!!
Now… That is Good Clutter!!!
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Final
Minnesota Wild 4 | 1 St. Louis Blues
Goals
MN:
Ryan Hartman (2)-PPG, Jakub Lauko (1)-SHG, Marco Rossi (1), Filip Gustavsson (1)-PPG (ENG)
STL:
Mathieu Joseph (1)
Assists
MN:
Kirill Kaprizov (4), Brock Faber (2)-PPG; Marat Khusnutdinov (1), Jonas Brodin (2)-SHG; Mats Zuccarello (2), Kirill Kaprizov (5); Unassisted-PPG
STL:
Zack Bolduc (1), Phillip Broberg (3)
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Next up:
The Minnesota Wild are on a 7-game road trip but their next game isn’t until Saturday at the Columbus Blue Jackets so they will return home before heading back out on the road. Saturday’s game is at 6 pm on Bally Sports North.
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