Dubnyk, Wild beat Blues 2-0 to avoid elimination

After what was the Wild’s best regular season in franchise history, to be ousted in five games against anyone is a major disappointment.

And that the old Wild has awakened – the team that played the first two-thirds of the season.

Allen, who was 3-5 in eight career postseason starts before this year, stopped 174 of 182 shots for a.956 save percentage and a 1.47 goals-against average to help the Blues eliminate the Wild in five games. He went to play the puck behind the net and passed it right to Coyle, who buried the open look at 16:50. No goals would come of it. Allen was great, and got some great shot blocking from his defensemen.

The Blues pushed back hard early in the second period and late in the game.

“He’s a competitive little bugger”, NY head coach Alain Vigneault said of Zuccarello. It didn’t feel like our game. I’m not going to take anything away from them, but I thought so too. “It was a battle, it was a grind and we got it done”. “Obviously, the results weren’t there, and it’s a game of results”.

The Wild didn’t go out without a fight. Just small picture. We got the first step going, and we’ll prepare again. “We used that momentum the whole way”.

“I’m pretty confident in the guys we have here, that we’re just going to be able to worry about Game 6”, Canadiens forward Brendan Gallagher said.

As you can tell from the title, we are all hoping they do not come home.

Then the Blues exacted their revenge on Saturday for the loss in 2015, this time with former Wild coach Mike Yeo directing the bruising bunch and goalie Jake Allen performing like a Conn Smythe Trophy candidate.

“I’m just playing my game”, Allen said.

That was more than enough support for Dubnyk, who wasn’t going to let the Wild lose on this night, capping his shutout with a 12-save third period as the Wild held on for the win.

Coyle has never seemed like less than a conscientious player, and no doubt wants to win; but the more one watches professional sports, the more one comes to understand that it takes most young players years to understand what that really means. That was the only thing that mattered.

“We have to do the same thing on Saturday, because everybody in this room still believes we can do it”, Hanzal added.

Down 3-2 after a Wild goal inched the team closer to tying the game, Jason Zucker did when he found the back of the net with 5:01 to play. “They don’t try to make plays”.

“Maybe, yeah, we’ll see what happens tomorrow”, Yeo said. “The decision-making was a little slower today”. Fortunately for them, there are ways to check how good the team’s shots are using expected goals, which weights each shot by their probability of finding twine. “Another tight one. We end up losing because of those details”.

Patrick Eaves, Nate Thompson and Ryan Getzlaf scored, and the Anaheim Ducks beat the Calgary Flames 3-1 on Wednesday night for a sweep of their first-round playoff series.

“We had a chance to wrap it up at home and didn’t make the most of it”, Allen said. “We’ve carried that into the playoffs, and hopefully we can keep doing it”.

The Blues, meanwhile, chased the puck for most of overtime until a simple dump-in yielded Magnus Paajarvi’s game-winner on the Blues’ eighth shot in the last 30 minutes of hockey. “Back to Minnesota, regroup tomorrow and go at it”. No team has looked more dominant these playoffs and yet here they are, down 3-1 to the St. Louis Blues.

“It’s tough business”, Boudreau said. “They still have a tremendous advantage up three games to one”.

“During the season if he was getting pulled or whatever he showed up the next day and did the work and I think we’re really proud of him the way he’s playing right now, but at the same time you could have swore he played the exact same way the whole year”, Perron said.