Third period to come:

I’m thinking we’ll see our first look at Matt Hackett. 2-0 Blues after 2. Anton Khudobin looked great that period. 

Matt Hackett, 77th overall in June and the nephew of Jeff Hackett, in for the Wild. Backes back for the Blues.

3-0 Blues: Hackett beaten on first shot. Armstrong, alone in the slot, rifles one to the top corner. Terrible D. Armstrong was just signed last week and has been great. Weller, Gillies and Smith minus-3’s tonight.

You know that Airplane line, “I picked a bad week to stop sniffing glue?” I picked a bad night to do a huge Colton Gillies feature? Oh, well. The story is to bed.

Bodies collide and chaos. Everybody picks a partner — David Perron and Danny Irmen; Shane Hnidy and David Backes; Andy Hilbert and Mike Weaver. Mostly wrestling. Perron and Irmen get five for fightings.

Armstrong just rifled one off the post. Good veteran pickup by Blues, who should have a very good year. Great up front, good depth on back end. If Chris Mason plays well …

Wild actually outshooting St. Louis with 9 minutes left.

Oh goodie, another Wild power play. Any chance Marty Havlat and Brent Burns can fly down real quick?

Scott and Janssen given misconducts after coming together. 4:16 left.

Hard to pick on anybody in a game like this, but this is the type of game where Benoit Pouliot should show some drive. He was the “guy,” tonight, and he was completely invisible.

Danny Irmen makes great play in offensive zone to give him a breakaway. He makes a great deke, but Bishop robs him to preserve the shutout. 2:20 left.

1:04 left. Wild about to get its 10th power play. I take what I said about Pouliot back. He scored a goal. 3-1. Final. I’ll be back

Second period:

James Sheppard, who missed the last 14:01 of the first period and played only two shifts worth 1:39 of ice time, will be back for the second. A puck broke Sheppard’s skate blade right off.

Khudobin makes nice save early on Patrik Berglund after Shane Hnidy giveaway.

Khudobin nice pad save on Steve Wagner.

Brad Boyes just split the D, but Khudobin made another robbery.

Greg Zanon goes to the bench slow. Stung up high after being nailed by a Mike Weaver point shot.

Kalus going to the box again. Another Blues power play. Big Ben Bishop in for the Blues. I watched him play the Gophers at the X once for Maine. Zanon is back for the PK.

Kalus comes out of the box and makes a great play on the forecheck to steal the puck, but Wild couldn’t get a shot off.

6:12 left in the second.

Giveaway by visor-wearing Craig Weller at center ice leads to 2-on-0 basically. Khudobin great save on David Perron.

Minnesota State’s own David Backes just sustained what looked like a serious leg injury in a collision with Benoit Pouliot.

Wild getting 5-on-3 power play after hold by Perron and the trip by Backes. Darren Pang just came over to say hi. He’s left Phoenix to become the Blues’ color guy. Smart man.

Brodziak at power-play point. Uh, I don’t see him there in the regular season. Blues kill off 2-minute 5-on-3.

Bishop just makes three saves at the goalmouth — Andy Hilbert and two by Jon DiSalvatore.

Janssen just ran his own teammates, Reaves. Well done.

First period: 

Pouliot-Sheppard-Irmen;         Falk-Hnidy

Gillies-Smith-Weller;           Scott-Fraser

Hilbert-Brodziak-Milroy;    Scandella-Zanon

1-0 Blues: Paul Kariya wraps around the net, shoots, scores after Khudobin made a couple bailout saves earlier. Came after an ill-advised icing.

2-0 Blues seconds later. Sick 2-on-1 and Chris Porter scores on one-timer between the circles.

Chris Mason absolutely robs Kyle Brodziak from a point-blank open look with the right pad.

Kalus-DiSalvatore-Kassian

Brodziak in for hooking, and Sheppard’s off for a skate repair. Wild down to two centers for PK.

Shane Hnidy just put a nice hip check into Cam Janssen. Old school. But Petr Kalus is going off for high-sticking. 11:27 left in period. Sheppard’s still not back. Been about six or seven minutes of real time.

I forsee a Ryan Reaves fight with John Scott, Matt Kassian or Shane Hnidy. Reaves is running people everywhere. Janssen just took a minor. Wild on power play with 9:04 left. Still no Sheppard.

By the way, Blues coach Andy Murray got a one-year extension today.

Awful power play. Sheppard is still not back. About 15 minutes of real time at least. They must not have any reserve size 15 skates back there.

Matt Kassian in box for big slash.

Justin Falk makes clean hit. Cam Janssen, an NHL middleweight who can fight, jumps him and beats the you know what out of him. He got a well-deserved 2-5-and 10.

Nathan Smith wanted to go with Derek Armstrong. He didn’t and Smith pounces. I’m sure he’ll get the same 2-5-10 Janssen got. Petr Kalus has been terrible. You wouldn’t believe the play he just made to put the puck back in his own zone that almost led to an Armstrong goal. Just 1:06 left in the period.

Sheppard still MIA. Smith wound up getting an extra two for roughing, but no 2-5-10 for instigating fight.

End of Period 1. Blues 2, Wild 0. James Sheppard misses the majority of the period with what I’m almost positive was a skate problem, no injury. We’ll see if he plays the second.

——————————————————————————— 

Teams have taken the ice for warmups. Looks to me Greg Zanon, Kyle Brodziak and Shane Hnidy are wearing A’s.

Puck drop in 20 mins.

Just shot breeze with Blues goalie coach Rick Wamsley. On the Wild’s lineup, he joked these were the games he used to have to play when Calgary played at Edmonton.

Petr Sykora has arrived in Minnesota. He will take his physical in the morning and may be able to practice.

Bloomington’s Erik Johnson about to play his first game in 544 days. He tore his ACL last training camp in a golf cart accident.

I nearly went to the Cardinals-Marlins game instead, but I thought you’d notice.

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