Schwartz: Wild will silence Blues in 6

Allen allowed just one goal on 52 shots in Wednesday's Game 1 overtime victory against the Wild.

RANGERS 2, CANADIENS 0: Tanner Glass scored in the first period and Henrik Lundqvist made 31 saves to help NY beat Montreal in Game 1 of their first-round Eastern Conference series. Vladimir Tarasenko leads St. Louis with 39 goals, Patrik Berglund has 11 assists and Jaden Schwartz has 179 shots on goal. Niederreiter scored a career-high 25 goals in the regular season and the Wild need him to be aggressive.

Edmonton center Connor McDavid, the NHL's leading scorer in the regular season with 100 points, had one assist in his playoff debut to extend his points streak to 15 games. But let's face it: Both games could've gone either way. The Blues found a way to bounce back from the moment to keep the Wild off the board in overtime long enough to strike for the win.

"Honestly, from a defensive standpoint, we did a pretty good job".

Yeo, as he takes his team back to St. Louis for two games on home ice, has a singular perspective about his situation and his opponent.

Diving, reaching and sliding for pucks from start to finish, the 26-year-old was oh, so close to his first career postseason shutout. Dubnyk always appeared to be in position the entire night, except for the overtime goal, on which he had no chance. "I think if we play that way and 10 percent better, then I think the results will be a little bit different". The 29-year-old native Czech, who scored in his only regular-season game after rejoining the Blues last week from a three-year run in the Kontinental Hockey League in Russian Federation, wound up a wrist shot that deflected off Christian Folin and past Dubnyk after Folin tripped. Kyle Brodziak, the former Wild center, tried to clear the loose puck.

That sequence was a little lucky, but Allen showed plenty of skill. As Tarasenko fell and fanned on his shot, the puck slid over right onto the stick of defenseman Joel Edmundson as he jumped up to join the play and put the game winning goal in the net.

"As we win more, we will could see more and more fraudulent tickets because the number of tickets available to sell are few and far between since season ticket holders bought most of the tickets for home playoff games", Troje said.

The two teams were scoreless through one, but that ended in the second period when Vladimir Sobotka scored off of a Daniel Steen pass to give the Blues a 1-0 lead.

Call it puck luck, the will of the Hockey Gods or whatever else lessens the sting, but Minnesota still didn't play poorly, its head coach reasoned after the game.

The Wild, one of the tougher home teams in the National Hockey League, now have a 13-17 all-time record at Xcel Energy Center in the playoffs, including a 4-5 mark in overtime games. That left four days for preparation, rest and rumination including a long, anxious afternoon leading up to the puck drop at 8:45 p.m. local time.

"Well, both games were 2-1", he said after Friday's loss. That's the beauty of the Stanley Cup Playoffs. "They've got six big defensemen, and it's hard to get through". NBC Sports reports Roberto Bortuzzo will replace Jordan Schmaltz on defense while Zach Sanford will replace Jori Lehtera up front.

The Wild dominated play for a majority of the 77 minutes, 48 seconds the game lasted. It was dominant in the faceoff circle, going 47-33 in the game, including a staggering 16-2 domination in the third period.