Beyond the spectacle, the Wild has job to do in Winter Classic

The jerseys are new, there's a stage just off the penalty boxes and the walk to the ice is like the catwalk on a runway.

But burrowed alongside the pageantry that will be the Winter Classic on Saturday night at Target Field is still a game and not just any game.

This battle between the Wild and Blues has plenty at stake.

"We want to win," Wild winger Marcus Foligno said. "We understand it's going to be cold, and we understand it's going be crazy, the atmosphere, that sort of thing. But at the end of the day, the ice surface is the same dimensions. Things are the same out there.

"It's been a game on our schedule where we see this as a boost to our team, and we want to make it that way."

The Wild has played just twice in the past 19 days and not at all in the past 11, its schedule interrupted by four postponements and a longer holiday break due to COVID-19.

Rust, however, isn't the Wild's only challenge.

So are the habits that sank the team into a season-high four-game losing streak before this pause, a bizarre backtrack after the Wild won eight straight to climb into the No. 1 spot in the Western Conference and continue its reign atop the Central Division.

Now, it's been bumped from both perches.

Not only has St. Louis leapfrogged the Wild to take over first place in the division by a single point, but Nashville is lurking and Colorado is also nearby. The race for seeding is on, and the Wild can send a message with this performance.

"We've lost four in a row," winger Mats Zuccarello said. "That's not acceptable. We've got to get on a winning pace here. For us, it's a big game against a good team. We let everyone around soak it in and enjoy it. But for us it's a big game."

The NHL considered factors such as rivalry, star players and whose fans were likely to make the trek to Minneapolis when selecting an opponent for the Wild in the Winter Classic.

But by picking the Blues, the league also served up a pesky matchup for the Wild.

Last season, the Wild won only twice in eight clashes after going 0-for-3 in 2019-20.

Led by captain Ryan O'Reilly, scorer Vladimir Tarasenko and goaltender Jordan Binnington, St. Louis combines skill with brawn and the experience that comes with hoisting the Stanley Cup, which the Blues did in 2019.

"We want to play a physical game, a fast-paced game," Foligno said, "[and] get to our game before they can get to theirs."

To call the Wild the underdog in this showdown, however, would be misguided.

Despite the team's recent woes, the Wild has established itself this season as one of the most competitive operations in the NHL.

Kirill Kaprizov is top-10 in scoring with a team-leading 36 points, only two goalies have more wins than Cam Talbot's 15, and the Wild has the best depth with a league-high 16 players boasting at least 10 points.

Ryan Hartman (14) and Foligno (13) are one-two in goal scoring on the team.

"We really just got to make sure we're not hesitating against that team because they can put it in the back of the net," Foligno said. "Just like us, when we're on our game, we're tough to beat and they're no different."

During the four-game losing streak, the Wild hasn't looked like itself: costly turnovers, untimely goals against and a lack of resiliency, which became a hallmark of the group earlier in the season when the team had a knack for late-game rallies.

The spotlight that is the Winter Classic could magnify how far the Wild has strayed from that prowess.

Or the team could seize this unique opportunity to rediscover its identity.

"We still have to play how the Minnesota Wild play in that venue but use that excitement to generate energy, use that excitement to generate fun," coach Dean Evason said. "Let's score some goals. Let's have some fun and hopefully have some success in the game."