How did the Minnesota Wild melt down in Round 1 against the St. Louis Blues?

Mike McKenna
Mike McKenna(MikeMcKenna56)
How did the Minnesota Wild melt down in Round 1 against the St. Louis Blues?

If any first round Stanley Cup playoff matchup was built for seven games, it was the St. Louis Blues versus the Minnesota Wild. Or so we thought.

The Blues won Game 6 by a score of 5-1. And despite a slow start in the first period, they deserved it. From special teams to goaltending, St. Louis had the edge.

For me, the series was won in the second period. The Blues put 21 shots on goal and scored three times. By the end of the middle frame, Minnesota was trailing 4-0. The Wild looked mentally and physically exhausted.

The Blues were the faster team, and their star players showed up when it mattered most. So without further ado, here are some of my observations from Game 6.

Cam Talbot hadn’t played in more than two weeks, and it showed when Nick Leddy scored the first goal of Game 6 on a routine wrist shot.

Wild head coach Dean Evason made a bold decision to start Talbot instead of Marc Andre-Fleury, and it didn’t go well. After consecutive losses in which Fleury allowed four goals, the Minnesota bench boss was looking not only for better play in net, but also a spark for his team. With St. Louis leading the series 3-2, and the Wild facing elimination in Game 6, Evason turned to Talbot.

I understand the reasoning. Talbot hadn’t lost a game in regulation since Mar. 1. He represented the Wild at the NHL All-Star Game this year. And Evason clearly trusted him.

But the goal that Talbot allowed to Blues defenseman Nick Leddy in the first period sucked the life out of the Wild. And they never recovered.

At the 36-second mark in the tweet above, Talbot sets his feet. He stops shuffling laterally and loses his angle, exposing the short side. When Leddy releases the puck, he’s forced to slide. Too late. Talbot quit skating. And skating, even for goaltenders, is everything.

Talbot made some nice saves as the game wore on. But Leddy’s goal will haunt the Minnesota netminder – and Wild fans – for years to come.

The Blues’ power play was too much for the Wild.

I could sit here and look up every statistic to prove my point, but is it really necessary? St. Louis scored twice in six tries with the man advantage on Thursday night. And even when the Blues didn’t find the back of the net, their quick puck movement wore down the Minnesota defensive core.

Strong power plays generally have a few things in common. Obviously personnel is important, and there’s no shortage of star power on the St. Louis roster. Vladimir Tarasenko, David Perron, Ryan O’Reilly – take your pick. They can all score. And even with point man Torey Krug out of the Blues lineup, St. Louis has former Hobey Baker Award winner Scott Perunovich available to quarterback the power play.

But personnel aside, St. Louis does a phenomenal job of moving the puck – and bodies – quickly around the offensive zone. That rapid movement is exactly why the Wild’s penalty killers had such a difficult time against the Blues. They couldn’t keep up. Minnesota allowed eight power-play goals in six games. That’s unacceptable.

For the third straight game, St. Louis center Ryan O’Reilly won the plus-minus battle against the Wild’s Joel Eriksson Ek.

For those of you keeping track at home, all six games held true to my favorite series predictor. In Game 6, O’Reilly was plus-1. Eriksson Ek was minus-1. 


I thought O’Reilly had his best game of the series. He scored a power-play goal and could have easily tacked on a second. But for me, it was the sheer amount of time O’Reilly spent playing against Minnesota’s top lines. He was on the ice for almost 24 minutes in all three situations.

With the Blues dressing 11 forwards and seven defensemen, it was inevitable that head coach Craig Berube would have to double-shift his centers on occasion. Players love going over the boards regularly. But it’s not easy to maintain pace and concentration over a full 60 minutes of hockey when the workload is increased. Somehow, O’Reilly doesn’t seem to be fazed by it.

During the two games that the Wild won in the series, Joel Eriksson Ek won the plus/minus battle against O’Reilly. But as the series progressed, Eriksson Ek’s effectiveness wore off.

On Thursday night, that was especially obvious in the faceoff circle. Eriksson Ek went an abysmal 23 percent, winning just three of 13 draws. That’s a stark contrast to the 67 percent of faceoffs won by O’Reilly.

If Minnesota intended on keeping the puck away from Blues goaltender Jordan Binnington, it did a terrible job.

Over the first two periods of Game 6, the Wild probably gave the puck to the Blues goaltender two dozen times. I wish I’d kept a running tally, because it was a really high number. The amount of pucks lazily rimmed around the boards was mind blowing.

Did Minnesota learn nothing in the previous games with Binnington manning the St. Louis crease? Or did they simply turn their brains off? Either way, the Wild were incredibly careless with their puck placement.

You know what? I’m being too nice. Minnesota couldn’t have been any dumber giving the puck to Binnington behind his net. Minnesota needed to chip pucks to speed and put them deep into the corners, away from the Blues netminder. Instead, the Wild gave Binnington room to operate. He’d make one simple pass and off the Blues went down the ice.

Minnesota knew well in advance that Binnington is one of the best puckhandlers in the league. Yet they fed into his strength. Not smart.

O Kevin Fiala, where art thou?

The Wild forward scored 33 goals and tallied 85 points during the regular season. He’s a restricted free agent looking to get paid this offseason. Yet in six games against the Blues, the 25-year old winger could only muster three assists. Fiala was unable to find the back of the net. And worst of all? Fiala’s 16 penalty minutes.

When Fiala is at his best, he’s a fast, dynamic player capable of dominating a game singlehandedly. But that never happened against the Blues. I thought Fiala looked tentative and increasingly frustrated as the series played out.

I can’t help but wonder how his performance in the first round of the Stanley Cup playoffs will affect upcoming contract negotiations.

Blues head coach Craig Berube did a masterful job of adapting.

When St. Louis was hit with a multitude of injuries on defense, many feared it would be too much for the Blues to overcome. But major credit is due to Berube, who massaged his forward lines and defensive pairs throughout the series.

That’s the benefit of depth. The Blues have proven that their top-nine forwards are easily interchangeable. Berube can slide a player – say, right winger Vladimir Tarasenko – between lines and not miss a beat. I think that allows for better matchups, especially on home ice.

But where Berube really made his money in this series was the deployment of his defense. Realizing that his team was missing significant pieces on the back end, Berube doubled down and went with seven defensemen.

I was surprised at first. But the more I thought about it, it made sense. Berube knew he was going to rely heavily on Colton Parayko and Justin Faulk. And he needed to guard against a player like Marco Scandella being re-injured – which happened in Game 4.

Berube also needed to shield against inexperience. Blues defensemen Calle Rosen, Niko Mikkola, Scott Perunovich are all green in the NHL and especially the Stanley Cup playoffs. But each one of them played a role in St. Louis’ final three victories in the series.

By Game 6, Berube was able to play his top four defensemen fairly evenly. Parayko and Faulk were both under 24 minutes of ice time. Leddy was back over 20 minutes, and Mikkola wasn’t far behind at 18. The remaining three – Robert Bortuzzo, Rosen, and Perunovich – were just over 10 minutes a piece.

Of that grouping, Perunovich was particularly noticeable. He had assists in all three games that he played. With Krug out, he’s become the Blues’ most important puck-mover on offense.

The Wrap

For a matchup that was expected to be tightly contested, I found it surprising that all six games were decided by three or more goals. And I fully expected a seven-game series.

There were moments when emotions ran high. I found some of the series compelling. But the team that scored first won every game. Big comebacks didn’t happen. And the intensity of the series seemed to wane the longer it went.

Minnesota is done for the year. And a red-hot Colorado Avalanche await St. Louis in the second round of the Stanley Cup playoffs.

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