1. Can the Wild capitalize on rebounds around the blue paint?
In Game 1 on Wednesday, Minnesota recorded 52 shots on net alone. A good handful of those were second or even third chances left out by Allen in what was perhaps the only aspect of the goalie's game that wasn't airtight.
The Wild knows it needs to do a better job of capitalizing and that, if Allen plays like he played in Game 1, there will be a few chance rebounds ripe for picking.
"I think you just can't steer away from shooting the puck," said Wild defenseman Jared Spurgeon. "You're going to have to shoot the puck all the time. I think when a goalie's playing like that, when you stop shooting he gets even better, so we gotta continue to do the same things, but get to the net a bit more maybe and bump in a couple ugly ones."
Part of netting rebounds will rely on how well Minnesota is able to fend off St. Louis' big D-corps, so look for physical scrums and puck scrambles around the Blues' net in Game 2.
"I still think that we passed up a few [rebound chances] that we could have just put in his feet and created havoc in front of the net," said Wild forward Jason Pominville. "They protect the front of their net really well, so we have to make sure we get people there, get traffic and get those secondary chances."
2. Can the Blues generate more offense to relieve the pressure on Allen?
On the other side of Minnesota's 52 shots, St. Louis only managed to put 26 shots on Devan Dubnyk, which is particularly low when factoring in the extra overtime frame. Assuming that Allen can't piece together a 51-save performance in four straight games, the Blues will have to start creating more chances in the offensive end.
