With both the Blues and the Wild trimming down rosters in preparation for the final cuts before the season starts, tonight’s game will probably play a bit more like an NHL game than the previous matchup. Unfortunately for the Blues, Niklas Backstrom is in net for tonight’s game, too. Backstrom allowed no goals on 32 shots against him, with the usually stingy Wild defense doing their job.
Tonight’s line-up sees the Blues have to deal with a top line of Setoguchi-Koivu-Heatley, which could very well lead to more scoring than the one goal that the Wild scored on the 23rd. The Blues counter with a line-up that contain all NHLers save for Evgeny Grachev, Chris Porter, and Ryan Reaves up front. The battle for backup supremacy continues with Ben Bishop possible for some icetime tonight.
Puck drop is at 7:00 Central time, and will be broadcast on the Wild’s website here. It will NOT be on KMOX as the Cardinals remain in the race for the Wild Card as they play the Houston Astros tonight.