Minnesota Wild vs. St. Louis Blue Preview: Bickel Up

The Minnesota Wild gave up another three-goal lead last night, finding themselves down 4-3 after being up 3-0, but managed to pull out an overtime victory in Dallas.

Likewise, the St. Louis Blues played last night and found themselves going to extra innings against the Edmonton Oilers before Vladimir Tarasenko netted the game-winner in St. Louis.

So both teams are traveling to St. Paul for the back-end of a back-to-back after going into overtime the night before.

This will be the teams’ first meeting of the year with an important two points on the line inside the division. Both teams have played very well in intra-divisional games. The Wild, after last night’s OT win over Dallas, sit at 6-0 in the division and the Blues are 5-1 in the division, dropping one of their two matches against Nashville.

St. Louis is now tied with Nashville for first in the division with a record of 15-5-2 (though Nashville has a game in hand), so stealing two points from them would be big for the fifth place, 13-9-0 Wild.

The Blues have been strong this season and have historically been a bit of kryptonite for the Wild. This will be the first time the team’s face-off since the Blues acquired another bit of Wild kryptonite, Paul Stastny, who stole a game from the Wild in the playoffs last year scoring a third period goal with just seconds remaining and then netting the overtime winner. (I imagine you didn’t really need a reminder.)

The big surprise for the Blues this year has been Tarasenko, who has been good in previous years, but is beginning to look like an elite talent who could crack 40 goals this season. He currently sits fourth in the NHL with 13 goals. Nino Niederreiter sits not too far behind him, tied for seventh with 11 goals on the season.

However, the Blues will be without starting goaltender Brian Elliott, who has posted strong numbers this season, with a 1.82 GAA (second in the NHL) and a .931 SV% (fifth in the NHL). The Blues are expected to start Jake Allen in the second night of a back-to-back, even though he may have been the reason Edmonton stayed in the game last night, with the Blues outshooting the Oilers 41-16.

The team obviously has reservations about riding Allen through the middle of the season with Elliott being listed as week-to-week. They have enough concern about it that they’ve brought in Martin Brodeur on a professional tryout to see if they can add him to the stable to sit behind Allen in case things get a little shaky.

The Wild will likely change up their goaltending, with Niklas Backstrom being the favorite to start. With no morning skate at all Saturday, it’s unlikely the Wild will do too much shuffling of the roster, though we will see when Mike Yeo talks to the press at 4:30 CST today.

The only question marks are whether or not Keith Ballard and Justin Fontaine get scratched again. The defensive scratch last night, with Jonas Brodin re-entering the lineup after a battle with mumps, was between Ballard, Mathew Dumba, and Nate Prosser.

As I mentioned in yesterday’s preview, Prosser has been getting increased ice time and was lining up in the top four in Brodin’s absence. He seems unlikely to be the scratch. Dumba had been playing well, posting better possession and offensive numbers than the other two of late, making Ballard the obvious choice, in my mind, for the scratch. However, Mike Yeo only gave Dumba 4:10 of ice time last night and with the Blues tending toward a much more physical game than the Stars, I wouldn’t be surprised to see Dumba out and Ballard in.

On the offensive side (pun kinda intended), you saw Stu Bickel pierce the roster for the third time this season. He saw an incredible huge 3:41 of ice time in yesterday’s game. (He’s averaging 3:55 per game this season.) Bickel might make more sense against a more physical St. Louis team than Dallas, but I don’t know that his inclusion in the lineup yesterday is defensible.

You’re only hurting the team when you suit up a player who you only trust enough to play 3:41. Remember, for a while, this game was 3-0 and Bickel still only played 3:41. He didn’t touch the ice in the third period. If you don’t trust a player when it matters, why suit him up at all. Fontaine has two-way ability. If you need to send a message to Fontaine or don’t trust him, call up someone who can be trusted, because it’s putting extra pressure on the top lines when the fourth line either has to have a top player rotating through with them or is just not seeing the ice at all.

That said, Bickel seems likely to be in the lineup again for whatever reason, but here’s hoping that Fontaine gets back in there.

Puck drop is at 7pm CST and can be watched on FS-N or heard on KFAN 100.3 on terrestrial radio or iheartradio.com online.

UPDATE:
The Wild have recalled Justin Falk from the Iowa Wild. So, yes, they are looking for some muscle against the Blues. Looks like they’ll be suiting up both Falk and Bickel and intimidating the Blues with some fierce talk from the bench. (Actually, Falk has been just fine and is probably going to play a fair amount of minutes.)

With this call-up, expect to see both Dumba and Ballard scratched on D. If Bickel does suit up, Fontaine is likely to be the third healthy scratch.

UPDATE 2:
Matt Dumba has been sent to Iowa. He’ll make his Iowa Wild debut on Sunday against the San Antonio Rampage. That’s likely the same night that Josh Harding will make his debut for Iowa.