Tonight at 9:30 p.m. ET, the St. Louis Blues and Minnesota Wild skate against each other in Game 4 of their Western Conference Round 1 best-of-seven series live from the Xcel Energy Center as part of the 2015 Stanley Cup playoffs.
St. Louis looks to steal a game on the road to nod the series up before heading back home while Minnesota hopes to leave the Xcel Energy Center with a stranglehold on the series by jumping out to a 3-1 lead.
These teams have alternated wins and losses throughout this set.
The Wild took Game 1 last Wednesday with a 4-2 win and then took their second lead of the series with a 3-0 shutout win on Monday when the series came home. The Blues, meanwhile, took Game 2 on home ice on Friday with a 4-1 triumph.
This game can be live streamed for free here.
Minnesota held the St. Louis to just 17 shots on goal in Game 3 en route to their shutout win and the top line once again was a huge factor.
Jason Pominville and Zach Parise each had a goal and a helper in the win while linemate Mikael Granlund assisted on both of their tallies. Nino Niederreiter added an empty netter to end the game.
Pominville (2-2--4), Parise (1-3--4) and Granlund (1-2--3) have combined for 11 points in the series thus far.
While the performance was great for the Wild in Game 3, head coach Mike Yeo balked at calling it "dominant."
"It wasn't dominant," Yeo said per NHL.com. "We played a good game, and I'll keep it at that. I liked our start, and I liked the way we reacted even though we weren't able to grab the lead. But it was a 2-0 game and we ended up scoring an empty-net goal. Again, I wouldn't say that that was dominant."
While the Wild has gotten some huge contributions out of its big guns, the same can't be said for the Blues.
David Backes, T.J. Oshie, Alex Pietrangelo and Paul Stastny are each in search of their first point of the playoffs.
Vladimir Tarasenko has picked up where he left off in the regular season, finding the back of the net three times and adding one assist for four points while Alex Steen has one marker and two helpers for three points. Kevin Shattenkirk has four assists in the series.
One of the main problems facing St. Louis is Minnesota's red-hot goaltender Devan Dubnyk.
"Well, that's the conversation that every coach usually has, but it's a little bit deeper than that," Blues coach Ken Hitchcock said about his team's struggles. "We're playing a team that's played the best hockey in the League since the goalie change and everybody is trying to catch up to them. I knew they were playing like this when we came in here and got beat right at the end of the regular season. It was our first experience at watching them play. They're on top of their game and it's our job to catch up."
Dubnyk has yielded five goals on 64 shots through this series thus far in the blue paint for Minnesota.
St. Louis counters with Jake Allen, who has stopped 70 of the 75 shots he's faced in the set.
The Blues look to even things up while the Wild want to take a commanding lead when these teams hit the ice at the Xcel Energy Center in Minnesota for Game 4 of their Stanley Cup playoff series.
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