from Sarah McLellan pf the Star Tribune,

The Wild improved the power play and penalty kill, cleaning up the messes from the dud two nights earlier, and that helped the team solve the biggest problem of them all.

For the first time in a year and after six consecutive losses, the Wild finally defeated the Blues – and it wasn't close.

This was a 6-2 blowout on Wednesday in front of 19,376 at Xcel Energy Center to even the best-of-seven, first-round series at 1-1 ahead of Game 3 on Friday in St. Louis.

"It's for sure helping to build confidence," Joel Eriksson Ek said, "knowing you can take the lead and run with it."

Kirill Kaprizov scored the Wild's first postseason hat trick while Eriksson Ek had two goals and Marc-Andre Fleury turned aside 32 shots to pick up his first playoff victory with the Wild and 91st of his career.

Fleury is one away from tying Grant Fuhr for the third most all-time in the NHL.

"Fun game to play," he said, "and hopefully we have many more of those."

continued

Game highlights are below.