In St Paul Saturday, the visiting St Louis Blues put an end to any thought of the Minnesota Wild hanging around for a game six in this opening round series.
Magnus Paajarvi midway through the first overtime to send the Blues to the second 
round with a 4-3 win and 4-1 series win.
“Really happy to finish it tonight,” Blues head coach Mike Yeo said. “[Minnesota’s] a group that definitely … I know it’s tough they didn’t get the win, but they gave us more than anything we could handle, and obviously Bruce [Boudreau (coach)] has done a great job, Chuck [Fletcher (general manager)] has done a great job and their team did a great job. They showed a lot of character.”
Once again, Bruce Boudreau was unable to get his team into the second round.
“[I] just told them I was proud of their effort for the year,” Boudreau said. “I know this is the part of the year that everybody including myself hates the most, when you put eight months into something and you don’t get what you want. They never quit all year. When things were going bad, they still never quit, they kept pushing.
“I thought when they made it 3-1 we could’ve said, ‘Aww, heck. It was a valiant try.’ They kept pushing and I thought the last three or four minutes of the third period I thought we could’ve had another one and we could’ve won the game.”
The WIld did not go quietly as they netted two third period goals from Jason Zucker and Mikko Koivu to force overtime.
Vladimir Tarasenko, Alexander Steen and Paul Stastny scored in regulation for the Blues.
Jake Allen made 34 saves for the win and carried the Blues to the series win.
“It’s playoff hockey at its finest, really. Ups and downs for both sides,” Allen said. “It was a battle, it was a grind and we got it done.”
Ryan Suter also scored for the Wild.
“Usually you remember what you last saw so, unfortunately, [we’re] going to remember getting knocked out in five games,” Minnesota’s Zach Parise said.
[WATCH: All Wild vs. Blues highlights | RELATED: Complete Minnesota vs. St. Louis series coverage]
Devan Dubnyk took the loss on 23 saves.
“It’s a best-of-7 series, if you get through you deserve it. I’m not going to take anything away from them, but I thought so too. I thought we outshot them, I don’t know scoring chances, I’m not a big stat guy, but I thought we had the momentum there for the most part and it seemed like they had that one chance and they put it in., Koivu said after the series loss.
You must be logged in to post a comment.