Some of what's being written elsewhere as the Wild and Blues prepare for Monday's Game 3 at the X.

St. Louis Post-Dispatch columnist Jeff Gordon: Blues must make their own luck.

Good bounces lead to victory and bad bounces doom teams to defeat. The process of deciding playoff games resembles a weighted lottery.

The better a team plays, the better its odds of winning. The more breaks a team creates with hard and smart play, the more likely it will get enough good breaks to prevail.

The Blues elevated their play, so they earned the breaks that led to a 4-1 victory. But they know they must keep improving to survive this series. Game 2 could have easily gone Minnesota's way when the Wild rallied in the third period.

Wild forward Charlie Coyle made a dazzling bid to pull the Wild even. He broke down the middle, took a slick pass from Thomas Vanek, danced past T.J. Oshie in the slot and ripped a shot over Allen's glove.

The puck hit the underside of the crossbar, caromed off Allen and started rolling toward the back of the net. But Blues captain David Backes reached in just time to sweep it away to safety.

Had Coyle scored there, the Wild might have kept on rolling to win Game 2 and put the Blues into a precarious spot. History tells the Blues that 0-2 series deficits are almost always fatal.

So they must force more breaks in Games 3 and 4 with the series shifting to enemy ice.

Read the full column here.

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Jrermy Rutherford, St. Louis Post-Disptach: Blues bracing for hostility in Minnesota

"Their building will be rocking," said forward Paul Stastny, who was with Colorado last year when the Avalanche fell to Minnesota in the first round. "It's going to be a loud building, but it always is. But that's the fun of it. Basically it's 25 of us, and our coaching staff, against 20,000 fans and their team. We have to do everything we can to take the emotion out of it because we know they will be emotional."

The Blues pulled even in the their best-of-seven playoff series against the Wild with a 4-1 victory in Game 2 Saturday at Scottrade Center. But now come back-to-back games at the 'X', where things will become challenging for Ken Hitchcock's club.

Read the full story here

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Nate Bauer, the Hockey Writers blog: 'Intimidating' Blues don't faze Wild

Despite what many thought would be a series dominated by St. Louis' brute physicality, the Wild has proven effective against the Central Division Champions by using its speed and smarts and staying away from the post-whistle non-sense that some of the Blues' players like to employ. In other words, remaining unflappable has allowed Minnesota to play its game and not St. Louis'. After winning game 1 in surprisingly dominating fashion for a road game, the Wild was in a position to win game 2 as well, despite a rather poor first period that saw the Blues score twice.

Read the full post here

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ESPN's Craig Custance: In Tarasenko, Blues finally have game-changing player

The Blues have had forward depth for the last several seasons but it's not easy to constantly grind out goals while battling through the Western Conference in the postseason. Ideally, you have a goal-scoring game-breaker.

The Kings knew that, which is why they took a chance on Marian Gaborik last season in a move that helped win a Stanley Cup.

The Blackhawks have that player in Patrick Kane, who now has 94 points in 95 playoff games.

It's a weapon the great teams need.

It's one the Blues now have in Vladimir Tarasenko.

"There's no time to celebrate. We have a tough couple games coming," said Tarasenko. "Our city waiting for a Cup for a long time and I think we can do this."

Read the full story here