In full disclosure, I picked the Minnesota Wild to defeat the St. Louis Blues. In full disclosure, I did this because I trusted Jake Allen as a winning postseason goaltender about as much as I trust my willpower with a Taco Bell drive-thru in my peripheral vision at 2 a.m.

I was aware Allen had been exceptionally better under coach Mike Yeo than he was under Ken Hitchcock, which is to say he couldn’t have been any worse. I was aware that (St. Louis Blues legend) Martin Brodeur was now his goaltending coach, but didn’t buy the osmosis that had apparently occurred between the two. But I was also aware that Allen had a minus-2.17 goals-saved above replacement in the 2015 playoffs, and that the Blues needed Brian Elliott to rush in for the save when Allen flopped in last postseason’s spotlight.

My lack of confidence in Allen was, legitimately, the primary motivating factor in picking against the Blues. In consuming many Stanley Cup Playoff predictions, I know I wasn’t alone. In discussing the team with many Blues fans, I know that curiosity about Allen in the playoffs wasn’t exactly an unspoken fear, no matter how good his regular season finished.

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Then Jake Allen became Martin Brodeur reincarnate, and three games later we all look like idiots.

The pundits. The doubters.

And above all else, the Minnesota Wild.

***

Bruce Boudreau was red-faced after Game 3. It was more frustration than embarrassment, although being down 0-3 no doubt filled him with the latter, too.

He knows the Wild are essentially doing what needs to be done, to the tune of a 66.6 to 43.5 Adjusted-Corsi-For-per-60-minutes advantage at even strength through three games. That Blues’ Corsi-For, in contrast, is the lowest in the playoffs, and it’s not even really close. When the Wild are trailing, the advantage balloons to a 73.53 to 41.75 advantage for Minnesota. They’re carrying the play.

“I don’t think we’re playing that bad,” said Boudreau. “The one thing I’m not going to criticize is their effort.”

The Wild have had their bouts of bad luck – posts, whiffs, that Zach Parise stick that prevented a goal in Game 1 – but that’s not why they’re losing. They’re losing because of Jake Allen.

Allen has stopped 114 of 117 shots in the series, to the tune of a .974 save percentage. His positioning has been flawless. He’s big in the net. He’s been as poised as he’s been leaky in previous postseasons. And he’s given up one goal at even strength in three games against a team that averaged 3.21 of them per game, second best in the NHL regular season.

Like Brodeur in his legendary career, Allen hasn’t done it alone. He’s a playoff-caliber goalie getting playoff-caliber defense played in front of him.

When Ken Hitchcock was fired, it was because the Blues couldn’t keep the puck out of their net if they cemented over the front and dug a moat of quicksand around the crease. Their defense was porous, their goaltending was terrible, with the worst save percentage in the NHL.

Yeo’s promotion, at the very least, seemed to address that primary deficiency. We knew the goaltending would improve, not only because hockey is cyclical like that but because Yeo’s system insulates them.

During his time in Minnesota from 2011-2016, the Wild were ninth in the NHL in goals-against at 5-on-5, right behind the Montreal Canadiens, who had Carey Price while Yeo … didn’t. That the Blues recaptured their structure and saw their season turn around defensively under Yeo was expected. That Allen was that damn good within that system wasn’t: 1.85 goals against and a .938 save percentage under Yeo.

In the playoffs, we’ve seen a continuation of that regular-season success, even though the Blues are suddenly giving away more shots than a Daytona Beach bar at spring break: 28.4 shots per game in the regular season, 39.0 in the playoffs through three games.

What they’re doing, though, is limiting those shots to low-danger chances.

“It’s not rocket science. We’ve got to be better…better chances to the net,” said Wild defenseman Ryan Suter.

Low-danger and high-danger shots are metrics cooked up by Corsica to show how much heavy lifting a goalie’s doing. Through three games, Allen’s faced more low-danger chances at 5-on-5 (53) than any other goalie in the playoffs. That’s obviously a byproduct of the Blues giving up bushels of shots to the Wild, but let’s not take this for granted: ‘Twas a time this season when Jake Allen couldn’t stop a low-danger shot if the puck had a flashing neon sign on it that read “SHOT APPROACHING, STICK DOWN PLEASE.”