The late season swoon that the Minnesota Wild suffered may have been more systematic than thought.
The St Louis Blues continued their strong play in their opening round series with the Wild as they won, 3-1, Sunday afternoon.
The win buries the Wild in a 0-3 hole that seems insurmountable at this point.
The big reason for the Blues dominance has been Jake Allen who made another 40 saves to get the win Sunday.
“He’s fantastic,” Blues captain Alex Pietrangelo said. “I’m not very good with words. I don’t use big words. I’ll just say fantastic is about the biggest one I can figure out.
“Lights-out, I guess. He’s calm back there. Anytime we need a save, a whistle, he’s there. We’re going to need him the rest of the way.”
Allen has yielded just three goals on 117 shots.
Alexander Steen, Colton Parayko and Jaden Schwartz all scored for the Blues.
“I don’t think we’re playing that bad,” Wild head coach Bruce Boudreau said. “We had 79 shots at their net today, compared to, I think it was 47. Not that that’s an indicator of anything, there are some parts of our game that could be better, there’s no doubt in my mind. The one thing I’m not going to criticize is our effort. These guys are trying right to the end; they’re trying as bad as everybody. They want to bring it home to Minnesota but right now, it’s just not working.”
They may not be playing badly but they have yet to solve Allen in net and their time is running out.
Charlie Coyle had the lone strike for the Wild.
“We have to find ways. They pack it in pretty tight. We’ve been saying it the last three games,” Coyle said. “It’s kind of getting old, obviously. We’ve got to find a way to get pucks through. We need more traffic, get inside their [defensemen]. We’ve got to find ways to score whatever it is. It’s now or never. Pretty tired of talking about it, we’ve just got to go out and prove it.”
[WATCH: All Blues vs. Wild highlights | RELATED: Complete St. Louis vs. Minnesota series coverage]
Devan Dubnyk made 28 saves in taking the loss.
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