One of the keys for the Wild in its first-round playoff series against St. Louis is finding a way to win the special teams battle against a Blues team that is among the best in the NHL on both the power play and penalty kill. St. Louis converted on 27% of its power plays in the regular season, second best in the NHL, and killed 84.1% of its penalties, fifth best in the league.
Monday night in Game 1 at Xcel Energy Center, the Blues flexed those special-teams muscles and rolled to a 4-0 victory over the Wild.
In a workmanlike performance, St. Louis went 6-for-6 on the penalty kill and 2-for-5 with the man advantage, with David Perron scoring two power-play goals and completing a hat trick in the third period just after a Wild penalty expired.
It also helped the Blues that their best penalty killer all night was their goalie, Ville Husso, who made 11 of his 37 saves while his team was shorthanded.
"The penalty kill was unreal, and the power play was good, so it was a great game for us,'' said Husso, who got a shutout in his NHL playoff debut.
In going 3-0 against the Wild in the regular season, the Blues were 8-for-9 on the penalty kill and scored on three of nine chances on the power play. That dominance continued Monday, running the St. Louis' totals to 14-for-15 on the kill and 5-for-14 on power plays vs. Minnesota this season.
"There were a lot of penalties throughout the league [Monday], and that's probably the standard they are trying to set right now,'' Perron said. "Obviously, we'd like to stay out of the box a little bit more, but we're also fine with that.''
Two minutes into the game, the Wild got the first power play, but Husso made two saves and St. Louis almost scored on Ivan Barbashev's breakaway, on which goalie Marc-Andre Fleury made the save and then stopped on the following penalty shot.
