Wild pre-season opener: It's Deja Vu, All Over Again

Wild suffer blowout defeat by St. Louis at home for second straight pre-season; 409-game sellout streak ends

By Wild Road Tripper

It was really bad enough the first time. Really, guys. It was.

But, proving that you can never stop learning, the Minnesota Wild scored in the first minute of Wednesday night's game at Xcel Energy Center, then proceeded to roll over and play dead, losing for the second straight pre-season to the St. Louis Blues 5-1 in front of an announced crowd of 16,219, which breaks the Wild's nine-season streak of sellouts at home. It was the first time there were ever seats available for sale at game time at the box office.

While starting goaltender Niklas Backstrom could have sued his defense for non-support, the Blues, playing their second game in as many nights, looked to be the fresher team as the Wild stumbled, bumbled, and generally did not give their faithful followers a whole heck of a lot of reason for optimism, going into their 3-games-in-3-nights marathon, which starts Friday night at Scottrade Center and follows with games at home vs. Philadelphia Saturday night, and at Montreal on Sunday evening.

I'll leave it at this: if this is the type of play we see in Europe, the Wild can say all they want, but the NHL will never ask them to go across the street, much less across the 'pond'. This team was not ready to play tonight. And, it showed.

'Nuff said. G'night, folks...