A few days off wasn’t enough to cool down the red-hot MInnesota Wild as they used a big first period to fuel a 5-1 rout of the Blues in St. Louis on Saturday night.
Eric Staal and Nick Seeler scored five seconds apart in the opening period and J.T. Brown added a goal late in the first to give Minnesota a 3-1 lead, which grew to 5-1 with goals later in the game from Matt Dumba and Eric Fehr.
For Staal, it was career goal No. 400, making him the 96th player in NHL history to reach 400 goals.
“It feels good,” Staal said after the game, via ESPN. “I hope there’s a lot more yet. I feel like I’m still a young guy. I got a lot more time to play this game. It’s a special game and I’m grateful every day I’m in, so I try to prove myself every day. It’s cool. I’m sure my kids will have something to say about it tomorrow, which is fun for me and hopefully, more ahead.”
Former Wild head coach Mike Yeo, now in his third season coaching the Blues, wasn’t pleased with his club’s effort.
“Sometimes you lose and sometimes you get beat and we got beat all over the ice tonight,” Yeo said. “The only thing that’s a little bit disturbing is that for a division game and playing at home, we didn’t really seem to really get any response tonight. That was disappointing.”
The Wild have won seven of eight and are now 8-3-2 on the season. Their 18 points place them second in the Central Division, just four points behind first-place Nashville (11-3-0).
Minnesota continues its season-long seven-game road trip Tuesday night at San Jose.
