Well, that wasn’t quite the effort we hoped to see from the Wild on Saturday night. It went into St. Louis knowing that it needed to elevate its game against the best team in the Western Conference, but sloppy defensive play and poor penalty killing would ultimately doom Minnesota. Further, when the Wild broke down defensively—which it did a lot, as St. Louis peppered Devan Dubnyk with 40 shots—the Wild netminder wasn’t able to turn away enough of the chances to bail out his defenders. It’s a storyline that has been far too prevalent during several stretches of this season so far.
Another tough Central Division rival looms for the Wild tonight in Winnipeg
