Wild at Blues game preview: Marc-Andre Fleury will make his fourth consecutive start in goal

7 p.m. Saturday at St. Louis Blues, Enterprise Center

TV; radio: BSN; 100.3 FM

Morning skate update: Marc-Andre Fleury will make his fourth consecutive start in goal for the Wild.

Stats and analytics: Tap here.

Pregame reading: Marat Khusnutdinov “in tune with everything” during his NHL debut with Wild

Opening bell: The Wild aren’t the only ones chasing Vegas for the last wild-card seed in the Western Conference. So are the Blues, who trail the Wild by two points; the Wild (33-27-7) are four behind the Golden Knights. That means this game is crucial to each team’s playoff hopes. Although the Wild are on a 5-0-1 roll, they were dumped 3-1 by St. Louis (34-29-3) before that run started. The Blues have also won eight of the past 10 matchups against the Wild in St. Louis.

Watch him: LW Kirill Kaprizov is one point shy of 75, which would match his output from last season when he posted 40 goals and 35 assists in 67 games. That this season is turning into one of Kaprizov’s most fruitful in the NHL is a testament to his second-half surge: in his last 23 games, Kaprizov has racked up 21 goals and 17 assists. During his current six-game point streak, he’s recorded eight goals and three assists.

NHL standings

Injuries: Wild C Joel Eriksson Ek (lower body) and D Jared Spurgeon (hip/back).

Forecast: Should the Golden Knights be nervous about the Wild catching up? This game should help answer that. Yes, the Wild have won three in a row and haven’t lost in regulation since the last time they played the Blues on March 2. But the bulk of their recent success has come against teams near the bottom of the standings. St. Louis is right behind them in the Western Conference race and if they want to stay focused on Vegas, there’s no better way to do that than to put some more distance between them and the Blues. The trek only gets tougher if there are more teams to hurdle. And what better way to bolster their playoff chances and stoke their confidence than to defeat a pesky rival? St. Louis is 11-4-1 in its past 16 contests vs. the Wild, who blew their last “biggest” games of the season to the Blues and Predators. Here’s their do-over.