Wild get the Blues in their road finale, falling in St. Louis

ST. LOUIS – Opportunities can come your way when you least expect them, in the most unlikely of places. For a half-dozen Minnesota Wild prospects, an opportunity arrived on a muggy weeknight night in Missouri.

In their final road game of the regular season, the Wild rested many regulars and patched together a lineup that fell behind, took a lead, fell behind again and ultimately lost to the St. Louis Blues 6-3 on Monday.

Leading 3-1 in the second period, the Wild surrendered the next five unanswered as goalie Filip Gustavsson was touched for five or more goals for the second consecutive start. He finished with 17 saves in the loss as Minnesota went 0-3 on its final road trip of the season.

Nick Foligno, Danila Yurov and Michael McCarron scored for the Wild, who finished their regular season road slate with a 23-14-6 mark away from Grand Casino Arena.

Minnesota hosts Anaheim in Minnesota’s regular season finale on Tuesday.

The visitors’ lineup versus the Blues was reminiscent of a preseason game, with defenseman Zach Bogosian still missing due to a lower body injury, and eight regulars given a night off. The voluminous healthy scratch list included Matt Boldy, Jonas Brodin, Joel Eriksson Ek, Brock Faber, Marcus Foligno Ryan Hartman, Quinn Hughes, Kirill Kaprizov and Mats Zuccarello. Added all up, that was 486 points missing from the visiting team’s line chart.

In their place were five recent call-ups from the Iowa Wild and rookie defenseman Viking Gustavsson Nyberg making his NHL debut, as well as some lesser-utilized members of the NHL roster.

Playing out the string after they were eliminated from the playoff race last weekend, the Blues started fast, taking the game’s first lead just 82 seconds into the game. Gustavsson got most, but not all, of Colton Parayko’s slap shot from the blue line, and the puck trickled over the goal line, forcing the visitors to play from behind early.

The Wild’s first power play of the game had just expired when they got the equalizer, with Nick Foligno cleaning up a mess in front of the Blues net after Hofer had stopped shots by Daemon Hunt and Yakov Trenin. It was the elder Foligno’s first goal with the Wild after coming over from Chicago at the trade deadline.

With two minutes left in the period, Parayko ran Danila Yurov into the boards from behind, touching off a fight between the Blues defenseman and Trenin. Both took a five-minute break, while the Wild went to their second man-advantage of the game. It ended when Vladimir Tarasenko found Yurov alone in front of the Blue net, and the Russian rookie blasted a shot past the goalie’s glove. It was the first career power play goal for Yurov.

Minnesota appeared to take a 3-1 lead early in the middle frame on what would have been Hunter Haight’s first career goal. Hofer made the initial pad save, on a Haight shot, then the Wild rookie pushed the puck, and the goalie’s pad, over the line. Officials immediately ruled no goal, and after a discussion, Minnesota declined the opportunity to challenge the call.

Haight was almost immediately whistled for tripping, but Minnesota’s penalty killers produced a 2-on-1 break and a two-goal lead when McCarron beat Hofer with a wrist shot after a set-up pass from Foligno.

Minnesota successfully challenged an apparent Blues goal a short time later, and it came off the board when replays showed St. Louis had entered the zone offside. But the Blues responded to the setback with a pair of goals just 25 seconds apart to get the game tied and the audience back involved. St. Louis appeared to re-take the lead with just under eight minutes to play in the second, and again Minnesota successfully challenged for offside.

The Blues finally got a go-ahead goal that counted late in the period to lead 4-3 after two periods, then added another early in the third to give themselves some breathing room. Former Gophers star Jimmy Snuggerud hit on a long-range empty net goal with three minutes to play for the final margin.

Hofer finished with 28 saves for St. Louis, which won its season series with Minnesota 2-1-0.

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