Wild coach Bruce Boudreau addressed the media Monday morning, the day after a 3-1 loss in St. Louis dropped his team to 0-3 in its first-round series against the Blues. The team will practice at Xcel Energy Center tomorrow before returning to St. Louis for Wednesday's Game 4, but the coach chose to give them Monday off.
Boudreau said he knew it would be impossible for the Wild to forget about what has happened in the series thus far. Still, he hopes they can relax for a day before Wednesday's must-win game at Scottrade Center. He and his staff continued to work Monday, searching for ways to fix an offense that has scored three goals--including only one five-on-five--in three games.
Mr. Russo remained in St. Louis and will be writing from there today. Here's a sampling of Boudreau's comments from the X this morning after giving the players what he called a "mental health day.".
--On why the offense can't finish: "Their goalie is playing pretty well. Their defense is protecting pretty well. And when we get the opportunities, we're either overhandling it or a little bit nervous, or holding the sticks too tight because things aren't going in. ... We want to do the right things, but things aren't going the right way."
--Thoughts on the huge difference in shots on goal, with the Wild logging 117 shots to the Blues' 78: "(That) tells us we can tweak a lot of things. You're down 3-0, but it certainly says you haven't played that bad. Can we play better? Of course we can. I think there are certain times that things happen that we should be able to adjust a little bit better. But overall, is the care and the fight and the try there? Yeah, it has been."
--Is there anything you can learn from other teams that have rallied from 0-3 deficits?: "Because it's been done, we know it's not impossible. ... I'm sure St. Louis is going to be very aware of it, and they'll want to close it out in four more than anything. But it's an amazing thing, this momentum thing. If you can get on a roll and things start going for you, it could be made into a series."
--On Devan Dubnyk's play in goal: "We believe in him. In the end, he hasn't given up more than two goals a game. If I ask my goaltender just to give up two goals a game, we're going to succeed. During the course of the season, one of the things we always say is, 'Two goals or two minors (penalties) or less, and we're going to win.' So far in the postseason, that same thing hasn't happened."
