Wild Fall To Blues In Preseason Opener

The Minnesota Wild fell in a preseason opening contest with the St. Louis Blues on Wednesday night, 5-1. Martin Havlat opened the scoring with a goal 42 seconds after the opening puck drop. He buried a centering feed from Mikko Koivu.
The Blues answered with three first period goals, and two more in the second. Five different Blues scored goals, and all came against Niklas Backstrom.

• Anton Khudobin played the third period for the Wild, and stopped all 10 shots faced.
• The Wild is expected to make its first roster cutdown on Thursday morning. It looks as though nine players will be sent to Houston or their respective junior teams.
• Brad Staubitz was assessed 11 penalty minutes in his first game in a Wild sweater. He also had his first fight, squaring off with Cam Janssen in the third period.
• With a crowd of 16,219, the Wild had its consecutive sellout streak snapped at 409. It was the first non-sellout at any Wild game in franchise history including preseason, regular season and postseason.