Tonight at 6:00 p.m. ET, the St. Louis Blues (26-7-5, 57 points) and Minnesota Wild (20-16-5, 45 points) hit the ice at the Xcel Energy Center for the second of five meetings against each other this season. The game can be live streamed here. St. Louis fans can hear all of the action on KMOX 1120 while Minnesota fans can do the same on KFAN 100.3.
St. Louis has won seven out of its last 10 games and owns the best goal differential in the NHL coming into the game while the Wild have lost five straight games to plummet to fifth place in the Central Division. The first time these two teams met, the Blues shutout the Wild 3-0 in St. Louis on Nov. 25.
The Blues are coming in hot, having bested the Chicago Blackhawks 6-5 in a shootout in St. Louis on Saturday night before going on to defeat the Dallas Stars 3-2 on the road Sunday.
"Yeah, I think we're happy with getting four points out of four," forward Jaden Schwartz told NHL.com. "Pretty gutsy wins by us, a nice comeback win [Saturday] and kind of a character win for us [Sunday]. So it's definitely nice getting that extra point both nights."
The Wild blew a 3-0 second period lead in an eventual 5-4 loss to the New York Islanders on Sunday to drop their fifth game in a row.
"Obviously, everybody is frustrated," forward Nino Niederreiter said. "That's a game we should have won. We all know what's going to happen, we have a big game against St. Louis. It's a must-win for us."
The Wild will be without third-highest scorer Zach Parise (15-12-27) due to a lower-body injury. Mikko Koivu paces the team with 30 points off of eight goals and 22 assists while Jason Pominville has 17 tallies and 11 helpers for 28 points.
Two of the Blues highest scorers are out as top-scorer Alex Steen (concussion, 24-14-38) and third-highest scorer David Backes (upper-body, 16-14-30) will each miss the game. T.J. Oshie is second on the team with 32 points after finding the twine five times and adding 27 helpers.
Josh Harding is set to return between the pipes for the Wild after being sidelined for a period of time to change his M.S. treatment. Harding is 18-6-3 with a 1.84 goals-against average and a .934 save percentage. Jaroslav Halak will likely counter in the crease for the Blues and he's 17-6-3 with a 2.40 GAA and a .907 save percentage.
The Blues will look to continue their winning ways while the Wild hope to snap a five-game losing streak when the lights come up tonight at Xcel Energy Center in Minnesota.
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