Wild Warmup: Minnesota at St. Louis

The essentials

The Wild Warmup is presented by Bryant Heating and Cooling
Flush it, and forget it.
That will be the goal for the Wild on Saturday as it plays the second of back-to-back games against the St. Louis Blues at Enterprise Center.
The series lid-lifter couldn't have gone much worse for the Wild as it lost 9-1, allowing four first period goals and three more early in the second. Goaltender Kaapo Kahkonen struggled, but he wasn't helped much by the defensive effort in front of him, as Minnesota established a bit of infamous franchise history, setting a new record for most goals allowed in a single game.
St. Louis scored every which way, scoring once on the power play, seven times at even strength, and even once shorthanded, the first time the Wild has allowed a goal while on the power play this season.
Literally nothing good came out of the game for Minnesota, other than the fact that it - by all accounts - came out of it healthy.
And the good news is, the Wild won have to wait long to seek retribution.
"Especially with the game [on Friday]. It's a good thing we play [Saturday]," said Wild defenseman Jonas Brodin. "We can forget about this one and get back to how we play [on Saturday] and go from there. We've gotta be way better."
The message from Wild coach Dean Evason to his team as the score Friday became out of reach was simple; find something - anything - to take forward.

"That's exactly what we said [as the game went on], 'Lets build towards tomorrow, lets get something positive going here,'" Evason said. "In between the second and third, [the message was to] just build this period and we thought we did some good things in the third period. We had some looks but obviously not enough. We didn't think we built enough, but hopefully it's enough to push us forward here [on Saturday]."
It's no surprise the Blues came out firing on Friday night. Trailing the Wild by 10 points in the West Division standings and the Arizona Coyotes by three points for the fourth and final playoff spot, it's crunch time for the Blues.
After Friday, St. Louis and Minnesota still have six games on the horizon over the next three weeks. That includes each of the next two games, as the clubs finish consecutive games at Enterprise Center before shifting to Xcel Energy Center for one game on Monday.
That back-to-back scenario is one reason why Kahkonen was left in the game to lay on the grenade on Friday. Cam Talbot had started each of the past five games, and with the schedule becoming increasingly congested over the final five weeks of the season, the rest afforded to Talbot is crucial.
But now bouncing back on Saturday will be crucial. Win in game two and the margin of victory on Friday won't matter.
Drop consecutive games in St. Louis with a confident Blues team coming to the Twin Cities early next week and all of the sudden, the Wild's rather comfortable lead in the standings will continue to shrink.

"And especially with how much we're gonna be playing them," said Wild forward Zach Parise, the lone player to light the lamp for Minnesota on Friday. "The teams below you, you want to push them down even further, and that wasn't the case on Friday night]. But again, we'll rebound [on Saturday] and have a better game, but you always wanna create more of that separation with the teams below you and yourself, so with how much we're going to be playing them coming up, we've just gotta be a lot better."
The Blues have now won consecutive games after going winless in its prior seven contests.
Jaden Schwartz and Ryan O'Reilly had two-goal games for the Blues, who also got tallies from Sammy Blais, Zach Sanford, Jake Walman and Justin Faulk.
Jordan Binnington made 24 saves, and with the rather low stress level in the game on Friday, it wouldn't be at all surprising if he went again on Saturday.
Talbot will almost assuredly start for the Wild, looking to build on a 12-6-2 record, one that is paired with a 2.44 goals-against average and a .923 save percentage.
Marcus Foligno, who has missed the past several weeks with a lower-body injury, did not play Friday but skated with the team during morning skate. His return seems close, but whether he's available on Saturday isn't known.
Related:
[Postgame Hat Trick: Blues 9, Wild 1