ST. LOUIS — History wasn't on the Wild's side.
Aside from dropping three in a row to the Blues, including the Winter Classic at Target Field back on New Year's Day, the Wild had also lost seven of the last eight meetings and was in a 0-5 rut in St. Louis while getting outscored 25-7 during that skid.
The Wild had changed since then, but that still wasn't enough to avoid an encore.
After overcoming a two-goal hole in the third period, the Blues completed their rally 4-3 in overtime on Friday at Enterprise Center to tie the Wild in the standings at 92 points.
St. Louis, however, is still in third behind the No. 2 Wild because the Blues have played one more game.
After a previous miscue earlier in the action led to a Wild goal, Robert Thomas scored 1 minute, 27 seconds into overtime in what was a preview of a possible first-round playoff matchup — and not just because the Wild and Blues are sitting next to each other in the standings.
Play was tight, even as St. Louis established an early lead when Pavel Buchnevich polished off crisp passing with a one-timer on the power play 4:36 into the first period. The Blues ended up 1 for 2 and the Wild 0 for 2.
But the Wild wasn't facing a deficit when the period ended.
With 1:37 left in the first, Kevin Fiala put back a Tyson Jost rebound for his career-high 24th goal. Jost's assists was his third point on the road trip.
A costly mistake by St. Louis led to the Wild's next goal, with Kirill Kaprizov the beneficiary.
After the puck squirted loose along the boards, Thomas whacked it to the front of the net where Kaprizov roofed the turnover by Blues goaltender Ville Husso at 10:40 of the second.
The goal was Kaprizov's 41st of the season, which is one shy of matching the Wild's record for most goals in a season. Marian Gaborik (2007-08) and Eric Staal (2017-18) are currently tied for the lead at 42, but Kaprizov did tie Gaborik for the most even-strength goals with his 30th.
Overall, Kaprizov has scored at least once in eight of his last nine games.
His tally was part of an effective period by the Wild, which had the edge most of the second thanks to timely stops by goalie Cam Talbot and an attentive forecheck led by the Jordan Greenway, Joel Eriksson Ek and Marcus Foligno line.
That momentum for the Wild spilled over to the third where Jake Middleton scored his first goal with the team since a trade from the Sharks last month, a shot through traffic that caromed off the post and into the net just 18 seconds into the period.
Captain Jared Spurgeon's helper on the play extended his career-long assist streak to six games.
But it wasn't long before the Blues erased that two-goal hole.
First, they capitalized on a rising shot off the rush from Justin Faulk just 3:58 after Middleton's goal and then Brayden Schenn cut to the middle and lifted in a backhander at 10:28 for the equalizer. Seconds before then, Husso made two key stops on Jost and Fiala in tight.
Husso totaled 35 saves and Talbot 24 while suffering his first regulation loss over his last 11 starts.
