After Game 2 success, Wild not making any lineup changes for tonight's game vs. Blues

After evening the series with a 6-2 rout on Wednesday, the Wild won't alter its lineup for Game 3 against the Blues on Friday night.

May 6, 2022 at 6:17PM
A shot by Minnesota Wild's Joel Eriksson Ek (14) sails past St. Louis Blues goaltender Ville Husso (35) as Blues' Logan Brown (22) watches during the first period of an NHL hockey game Saturday, April 16, 2022, in St. Louis. (AP Photo/Jeff Roberson)
The Wild has dropped seven in a row to the Blues at Enterprise Center ahead of playing Game 3 on Friday night. (Jeff Roberson, Associated Press/The Minnesota Star Tribune)

ST. LOUIS — After evening the series with a 6-2 rout on Wednesday, the Wild won't alter its lineup for Game 3 against the Blues on Friday night.

But what is changing is the venue.

The Wild has lost seven in a row at Enterprise Center, getting outscored 35-15 in those games.

"It's always tough going into another team's building in the playoffs with the fans and everything like that," winger Jordan Greenway said. "For us, we have to find a way to not allow them to get momentum from it and kind of try and not give them anything to cheer about. For us just building off of what we did last game and just focusing on the little things that gave us the success we had and try to keep out all the external pressures and things that we don't need to worry about."

Now as the road team, the Wild won't get last change and that could affect the team's ability to get the matchups it wants.

"It'll be interesting what they try to do tonight," coach Dean Evason. "They obviously know what we were trying to do there. They may try to stay away from some. But again, we're not going to be flipping people off and on. We'll get the defense match off of what they would like to do against our forward match.

"If we get it, fine. If we don't, great. We're very comfortable with the group that we have, and we have been all year. It doesn't matter if it's our so-called first line or fourth line or if it's our scoring line or our checking line. We play the same way."

Projected lineup:

Kirill Kaprizov-Ryan Hartman-Mats Zuccarello

Kevin Fiala-Frederick Gaudreau-Matt Boldy

Jordan Greenway-Joel Eriksson Ek-Marcus Foligno

Nic Deslauriers-Tyson Jost-Brandon Duhaime

Jake Middleton-Jared Spurgeon

Jonas Brodin-Matt Dumba

Jon Merrill-Alex Goligoski

Marc-Andre Fleury

Key numbers:

2: Power play goals for the Wild in the first period of Game 2, which tied the franchise record for most in a period in a playoff game.

2: Assists for St. Louis' Robert Thomas in Game 2.

3: Points in Game 2 for center Joel Eriksson Ek.

7-0: Record for the Blues vs. the Wild at Enterprise center with Craig Berube as their coach.

7-8: Record for the Wild all-time in Game 3.

About the Blues:

The Blues might get one of their injured defensemen back in the lineup for Game 3. Marco Scandella (lower-body injury) will be a game-time decision. "He's played a lot of games in the league and playoff games," Berube said. "Experience. Size. He's a good penalty killer for us. He plays against top players on the other team. So, he does a lot." Nick Leddy and Robert Bortuzzo have both been ruled out with upper-body injuries.

about the writer

about the writer

Sarah McLellan

Minnesota Wild and NHL

Sarah McLellan covers the Wild and NHL. Before joining the Minnesota Star Tribune in November 2017, she spent five years covering the Coyotes for The Arizona Republic.

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