Last night’s game of the night between St. Louis and Minnesota ended in a 3-2 win for the Wild. The Blues tied the game at one-all at the 2:49 mark of the second period, a score that held for 13 minutes. The Wild took a 2-1 lead at the 15:15 mark with a power play goal by Zach Parise, his fourth goal, tying him for the league lead in the young season. Twenty-one seconds later, Charlie Coyle scored his second goal of the match, the eventual game-winner.
St. Louis out-shot the Wild 32-19, but Devan Dubnyk held his ground by stopping 93.8% of shots faced to earn the win.
Today’s Game of the Day is quite the tough decision. On the schedule tonight is Montréal at Ottawa (7 p.m. eastern, NHL Network/SN1) and… oh… nobody else… guess that makes things easier!
Similar to last night’s game, this matchup is both a divisional rivalry and a rematch from last year’s conference quarterfinals. Last season, Montréal won the Atlantic Division, 11 points better then the Wild Card Sens. That being said, Ottawa won the regular season series 3-1 before falling in six games to the Habs in the Stanley Cup Playoffs.
Currently, there is a four-way tie for the division lead between the Bolts, Habs, Sens and Wings at four points apiece, therefore the winner of this game will own the division for a night. You know, ‘cuz that’s important without even a full week played in the season.
Some players to keep a watch on include Ottawa‘s Mark Stone (three assists, tied for fifth in league) and Kyle Turris (three goals, tied for fourth in league; four points, tied for seventh in league) and Montréal‘s Alex Galchenyuk (three assists, tied for fifth in league), Andrei Markov (+4 Corsi rating, tied for sixth in league) and P.K. Subban (+4 Corsi rating, tied for sixth in league).
The Sens are favored in tonight’s game at -124.