Wild's Boudreau facing yet another early playoff exit

Déjà vu.

That's what Minnesota Wild head coach Bruce Boudreau must be experiencing after watching his club drop the first two games of a series with the St. Louis Blues on home ice.

The series is far from over, of course, as evidenced by St. Louis winning each game by a one-goal margin. At the same time, however, it's a road Boudreau has gone down before, and never with a happy ending.

During his time with both the Washington Capitals and Anaheim Ducks, Boudreau guided his teams to wildly successful regular seasons, finishing atop the division in eight of his nine years behind the bench prior to arriving in Minnesota. In fact, among coaches with at least 200 career games, Boudreau's winning percentage ranks second all time, according to Hockey Reference.

For his efforts, Boudreau has seen his teams advance to the Conference Finals only once (2015 Ducks), with first- and second-round exits more the norm. After Friday's loss to the Blues, Boudreau's all-time playoff coaching record stands at 41-41, a .500 record in a regular season's worth of games.

The Wild finished second in the Central Division this season and entered the playoffs as a decent bet to at least win a round and perhaps challenge for the Western Conference title. After two games, however, further disappointment looms large.

For now, Boudreau's holding onto the belief his team can turn things around.

"Both games could have gone either way," he said after Game 2, per Brian Murphy of the Pioneer Press. "I don't see any reason we can't go in there and do the same to them as they did to us."