diff --git a/public/app/features/trails/MetricSelectScene.tsx b/public/app/features/trails/MetricSelectScene.tsx
index 65f3169984c..74cf94b6f40 100644
--- a/public/app/features/trails/MetricSelectScene.tsx
+++ b/public/app/features/trails/MetricSelectScene.tsx
@@ -115,7 +115,7 @@ export class MetricSelectScene extends SceneObjectBase<MetricSelectSceneState> {
       return;
     }
 
-    const searchRegex = new RegExp(this.state.searchQuery ?? '.*');
+    const searchRegex = createSearchRegExp(this.state.searchQuery);
     const metricNames = variable.state.options;
     const sortedMetricNames =
       trail.state.metric !== undefined ? sortRelatedMetrics(metricNames, trail.state.metric) : metricNames;
@@ -126,7 +126,8 @@ export class MetricSelectScene extends SceneObjectBase<MetricSelectSceneState> {
       const metric = sortedMetricNames[index];
 
       const metricName = String(metric.value);
-      if (!metricName.match(searchRegex)) {
+
+      if (searchRegex && !searchRegex.test(metricName)) {
         continue;
       }
 
@@ -319,3 +320,26 @@ function getStyles(theme: GrafanaTheme2) {
     }),
   };
 }
+
+// Consider any sequence of characters not permitted for metric names as a sepratator
+const splitSeparator = /[^a-z0-9_:]+/;
+
+function createSearchRegExp(spaceSeparatedMetricNames?: string) {
+  if (!spaceSeparatedMetricNames) {
+    return null;
+  }
+  const searchParts = spaceSeparatedMetricNames
+    ?.toLowerCase()
+    .split(splitSeparator)
+    .filter((part) => part.length > 0)
+    .map((part) => `(?=(.*${part}.*))`);
+
+  if (searchParts.length === 0) {
+    return null;
+  }
+
+  const regex = searchParts.join('');
+  //  (?=(.*expr1.*))(?=().*expr2.*))...
+  // The ?=(...) lookahead allows us to match these in any order.
+  return new RegExp(regex, 'igy');
+}