Wild fall to Blues 5-4 in overtime to lose more ground in playoff hunt
The Wild will go into a four-day break with one more shoulda, coulda, woulda.
They blew two leads before falling 5-4 to the Blues in overtime on Saturday afternoon at Xcel Energy Center to drop two points back of St. Louis in the standings and sit four points behind the last wild-card berth in the Western Conference.
Their next game isn't until Thursday when their season-long six-game homestand continues against San Jose.
Brandon Saad broke a 4-4 tie 2 minutes, 3 seconds into 3-on-3 overtime after Brock Faber crashed the crease for the equalizer with 5:09 left in the third period.
Before that, Jordan Kyrou scored a hat trick to erase 2-1 and 3-2 deficits for St. Louis before snapping a 3-3 tie 10:01 into the third period when he wired the puck by Wild goalie Marc-Andre Fleury to complete the hat trick.
Fleury finished with 23 saves in his return to the crease after getting pulled during the Wild's 6-0 loss at Los Angeles on Wednesday. Jordan Binnington made 30 saves for the Blues.
This was the Wild's third straight loss to their Central Division rival.
St. Louis downed the Wild 3-1 on March 2 before outlasting them 3-2 in a shootout last Saturday, and the Blues appeared to be picking up where they left off: Jake Neighbours pounced on a Brayden Schenn rebound 10:07 into an otherwise sleepy first period for both sides; the highlight of the period for the Wild was a windmill glove save by Fleury on Colton Parayko.
But the Wild woke up in the second.
Marcus Johansson buried a give-and-go with Faber behind Binnington at 4:45 for his first goal in nine games in his 900th career game.
Then after a clutch stick lift against Neighbours to thwart a St. Louis chance while Fleury lost his stick and glove in the crease, Marco Rossi hauled in a Kaprizov pass that sailed through Matthew Kessel's legs and polished off a breakaway at 11:44 before crashing into Binnington.
Kyrou answered back for St. Louis 1:05 later when he capitalized in front of the Wild net, but Rossi came to the Wild's rescue again when he deflected in a Mats Zuccarello pass off his skate with 4:49 left in the period.
Not only does Rossi rank second in NHL rookie goals with 20, one behind Chicago's Connor Bedard, but he's only the second Wild rookie to reach the 20-goal benchmark in a single season; Kaprizov is the other.
Like before, Kyrou responded for the Blues, this time with a shot from deep in the slot 3:50 into the third period before he gave St. Louis its first lead since the first period.
