No margin for error, not capitalizing in this Wild-Blues series

"Two really good teams going at it right now. It's really good hockey. It's hard, very demanding of the players. Really good hockey. It's going to hopefully continue to be that type of series." – Blues coach Ken Hitchcock after Saturday's 4-1 win over Minnesota to send the series back to Minnesota tied at 1-1.

This is shaping up to be a heck of a series. Game 3 is Monday night at 7 at Xcel Energy Center.

4-1 final. The game was not indicative of the score.

Despite the Blues jumping out to a 2-0 lead, the Wild was right in this game until the 58-minute mark and would ultimately be victimized by almost amazing bad puck luck.

The Wild didn't cower to a Blues team that tried to set a physical tone early. In fact, the hits were even at 36-36.

The chances were even, too, if not favoring the Wild.

But Jake Allen was great with 24 saves and the Wild somehow had three pucks that were stopped right in front of or right on the goal line. The first, a Ryan Suter dump-in, hit a stanchion or a camera hole, took a left hand turn and completely caught Allen off guard. He saw it at the very last second and it somehow didn't go in.

Later, Jason Zucker centered himself and whistled one just wide off a 2-on-1. The puck landed on Mikko Koivu's stick to the right of the goal with the net open. He shot, the puck got by a sliding T.J. Oshie and a sprawling Allen made the save and Jaden Schwartz swatted it out of harm's way.

In the third, after a Thomas Vanek pass across the blue line, Charlie Coyle dangled between defenders and into the slot. His shot hit the crossbar, caromed off Allen's buttocks and slithered to the goal line before David Backes pulled it right from on top. All of these plays happened with the Wild either down 2-0 or down 2-1.

"I'll go talk to him, buy him a beer for that one," Allen said.

Schroeder also just missed on a glorious chance in the third.

Vladimir Tarasenko, whom I planned to feature in Monday's paper coincidentally, got the hat trick after not getting a shot in Game 1. The last went into an empty net for the first hat trick against the Wild in playoff history and the 13^th in Blues history and the first since Mike Sillinger ("Silly") in 2004.

"It was a goal-scorer's goal," Hitchcock said. "If you're going to have an odd-man rush, he's going to shoot, which is good for us."

Coach Mike Yeo was not overreacting at all after the loss.

The Wild played an even game with the Blues and came up on the short end. But it just shows how small the margin of defeat will be in this series.

"You don't want too happy when you lose a game, and we definitely aren't," Yeo said. "But the outcome of the game was a little bit frustrating probably because we only generated the one goal and I don't think that we played a one-goal game. A few pucks that got to the goal line that didn't go over the goal line, a few empty nets or a few opportunities that we just didn't capitalize on."

On the mood going back to Minnesota: "You lose a game, and it's frustrating, it's disappointing. I thought we did a pretty good job. We knew we were going to face their best game. They were able to get a lead on us, but the way our guys stayed with it, the way we battled and gave ourselves a chance to tie it up, we didn't. We'll find a way to get better. That's one thing I'm confident with our group. We'll continue to push the pace, we'll continue to get faster and stronger in our game and as we do that, then hopefully the results will follow.

Ryan Reaves tried to throw his weight around. Steve Ott was a menace all game by smack-talking, taunting, cross-checking and slashing. Devan Dubnyk got him back at one point by slashing him two or three times in the leg.

"Just one good one," Dubnyk said. "The first one was a poke. The second one was good. But it was fair game. He crashed into me a couple of times before that, a few times after that. They just gave a goalie interference call at the other end. I don't mind getting involved like that sometimes. It gets the heart rate going a little bit when you're not seeing too many pucks.

"I'm sure the whole building heard him scream. He was trying to let everybody know that it hurt him."

Ott came back to the net after the slashes and tripped up Dubnyk. The refs just called Zach Parise for a dubious goalie interference penalty a few minutes before, but the refs didn't call this one, probably because they knew they let Dubnyk get away with the chopjob on Ott's knee.

Ott on all the run-ins with Wild players today (he cross-checked Mikko Koivu in the back of the neck, slashed Kyle Brodziak and Matt Cooke, pet Jason Zucker on the helmet and trash-talked Jordan Schroeder (Schroeder just laughed at him), Ott said, "This is playoff time. They're doing the same thing out there. They're trying to compete as hard as (us) and we're trying to match effort for effort out there, and hopefully like tonight, you get out on top of a game. The goal scorers do their job and your role players do their role and it continues throughout the lineup."

On Backes calling him a pesky mosquito, Ott said, "Hopefully I just keep ticking, that's the only thing. It's a role guys. Everybody has a role out there and you try to play extremely hard. For myself personally, the only time I get offense is usually from being physical and our line with [Ryan Reaves and Marcel Goc], we want to be hard to play against. ... We had a solid night. But that was every line. Every guy had something solid throughout our lineup. That's what you need is that whole team effort in games like this."

If you didn't see Saturday's paper, I wrote more about Ott from Chris Stewart's perspective. Remember, the Wild talked to Ott about a contract last summer, by the way.

The Wild now heads home, where by the way, it has been very mediocre in my opinion all year.

But last year in the playoffs, the Wild went 5-1 at home and the fans were awesome and loud.

"I'm excited to get back home," Yeo said. "I know that our crowd in the playoffs, it's something special. Our guys feed off that. The energy in the building is outstanding."

Because the Wild wanted a right-shot on the right wing, Schroeder made his playoff debut. That caused the Wild to scratch left wing Sean Bergenheim, who played well in Thursday's Game 1 win, because Yeo explained the Wild needed a penalty killer with Fontaine out.

Cooke, who missed Game 1 with abdominal soreness, played his 104^th career playoff game. Kyle Brodziak centered the two.

What else?

Scandella scored his second career playoff goal. He had two goals in his last two games of the regular season after going goalless since Dec. 29. Scandella had 11 goals this year.

Dubnyk on the offense: "Not a lot of luck down there today. We definitely could have had three or four goals. The guys played well. That's just the way goes sometimes. I thought we did a good job generating chances. It's just unfortunate that some didn't go in the net, but if we keep playing like that, we'll be fine."

Dubnyk on Tarasenko's second goal where Dubnyk left his post to cheat expecting a cross-crease pass: "That's just a mistake by me. It's not a good goal. I came off my post on a guy like to shoot, who's got a pretty good shot and he made me pay for it. That's a mistake by me that cost me a goal against. Make sure it doesn't happen again."

On the mood: "We're fine."

Coyle on his missed chance: "So many chances on our part. We have to bury those. That's what it came down to. They buried theirs. We were right there with them. It wasn't like they took over at any point. We played a solid game. just those chances we have to bury."

Did you see how close it was? "I actually didn't see it. I knew it hit a bar. I didn't know if it was inside or not. Good play by them to keep it out. Like I said, we've got to bury those."

Coyle on the game: "They played a great game. they came out like they wanted to, but we were right there. They came out physical, and we matched it if not better. We're in a good position. It's a tied series right now, going back home. We'll take that."

"I thought we played two good games here. Down 2-0 in the first period, you can find yourself in a hole. But again, we had great chances not only to make it 2-1 but to tie it up. We just couldn't get that equalizer. But we had a lot of good chances."

On the mood, Parise said, "I thought we played two good games. You find yourself down 2-0 here early, but we got ourselves back in the game. It was just a couple that we couldn't capitalize and put in the net. Overall we'd love to be going home 2-0 but it's 1-1. There's a lot of things we can feel good about. Of course there are areas for improvement, but there's a lot of things that we've been doing pretty well.

"It's always a good atmosphere in our building in the postseason. Really looking forward to that."

Big game Monday.

When teams are tied 1-1 in a best-of-seven series, the Game 3 winner goes on to win the series 67.3 percent of the time (189-92), according to the Elias Sports Bureau. The Wild didn't lose two games in the regular season under Dubnyk.