Game 3: Blues bracing for hostile Wild crowd
No member of the St. Louis Blues knows just how raucous Xcel Energy Center will be quite like Paul Stastny does.
Stastny was a part of a Colorado Avalanche team that was upset by the Wild in the first round of the playoffs last season, including three losses in Minnesota's arena.
“Their building will be rocking,” Stastny told the St. Louis Post-Dispatch. “It’s going to be a loud building, but it always is. But that’s the fun of it. Basically it’s 25 of us, and our coaching staff, against 20,000 fans and their team. We have to do everything we can to take the emotion out of it because we know they will be emotional.”
With the best-of-seven series even at one-game apiece, St. Louis comes to town having split a pair of regular-season games at the X. In all, the Blues finished with the third-best road record in the NHL, going 24-12-5 away from Scottrade Center. However, according to the Dispatch, they've lost eight straight road games in the playoffs and have been outscored 25-11 in their past 10 road postseason games.
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In contrast, the Wild haven't been as good at home; their 22 home wins ranked 19th in the NHL and they struggled down the stretch, going 4-5-1 in their last 10.
Wild coach Mike Yeo, according to NHL.com, is throwing the last month of home woes out the window and expects his club to come out firing.
"Let's see how good we are at home," Yeo said. "We were a real good playoff team at home last year (5-1 in the playoffs). I know our home crowd was a big factor in that."
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Here's what the Blues' home arena sounded like before the start of Game 2.
