The Minnesota Wild and St. Louis Blues meet Thursday in game 6 of the West First Round NHL Playoffs at the Enterprise Center. The Minnesota Wild look to save their season and force a game 7 on Saturday. The St. Louis Blues look to make the second round for the first time since 2018-19 when they won the Cup.

The Minnesota Wild are averaging 3 goals per game and are scoring on 22.2 percent of their power play opportunities. Kirill Kaprizov leads Minnesota with 7 goals, Ryan Hartman has 5 assists and Joel Eriksson Ek has 17 shots on goal. Defensively, the Minnesota Wild are allowing 3 goals per game and are killing 72.7 percent of their opponent’s power plays. Marc-Andre Fleury has given up 15 goals on 159 shots faced.

The St. Louis Blues are averaging 3 goals per game and are scoring on 27.3 percent of their power play opportunities. David Perron leads St. Louis with 5 goals, Justin Faulk has 4 assists, and Ryan O’Reilly has 18 shots on goal. Defensively, the St. Louis Blues are allowing 3 goals per game and are killing 77.8 percent of their opponent’s power plays. Ville Husso has given up 9 goals on 96 shots faced, and Jordan Binnington has allowed four goals on 62 shots.

The Wild are 6-1 in their last 7 Thursday games and 9-4 in their last 13 games playing on 1 days rest. The Blues are 7-3 in their last 10 home games and 15-5 in their last 20 overall. The over is 5-2 in Blues last 7 home games. The over is 18-8-2 in Wild last 28 vs. Central. The Wild are 1-8 in the last 9 meetings in St. Louis and 5-16 in the last 21 meetings.

The overs are heating up in these NHL playoffs and the St. Louis Blues have found their groove offensively their last two games, scoring 10 goals in their last two games. The over has hit in seven of the last nine meetings between the Blues and Wild. The over is 22-8-1 in the Blues last 31 games overall. I’ll play the trends here and side with the over.