Ryan Hartman and Sam Steel each had a goal and an assist as the Minnesota Wild defeated the visiting St. Louis Blues 5-3 Saturday in St. Paul, Minn.
Frederick Gaudreau, Jared Spurgeon and Jonas Brodin also scored for the Wild (45-24-10, 100 points), who snapped a three-game winless streak.
Gustav Nyquist had two assists for Minnesota and Filip Gustavsson made 37 saves.
Sammy Blais, Pavel Buchnevich and Jake Neighbours scored for the Blues (37-36-7, 81 points), who suffered just their third regulation loss in their last 13 games.
Justin Faulk had two assists and Jordan Binnington made 25 saves for St. Louis.
The Blues outshot the Wild 18-8 and controlled much of the first period’s 5-on-5 play. They struck first to take a 1-0 lead 5:19 into the game.
Jakub Vrana sent the puck to Faulk at the blue line. Faulk fired a shot from the center point and Blais redirected it past Gustavsson.
But the Wild surged ahead 2-1 with two short-handed goals 20 seconds apart while killing the same penalty.
On the first goal, Hartman punched the puck out of the Minnesota zone and gave chase. Binnington came well out of his net to retrieve the puck, but Hartman won the race, dodged Binnington’s check and scored into the empty net with 8:43 left in the period.
Then Hartman broke up another Blues zone entry, raced up the left wing on a 2-on-1 break and set up Steel’s goal from the right side.
The Wild picked up their offensive pace in the second period and pushed their lead to 4-1.
Gaudreau scored a power-play goal with 5:33 left in the period by snapping a shot over Binnington’s glove from the right circle.
Then Spurgeon scored off the rush, moving in from the right wing and beating Binnington between his pads on his backhand.
Neighbours cut the Minnesota deficit to 4-2 at the 1:11 mark of the third period by taking a drop pass from Brayden Schenn and scoring from atop the left circle.
Buchnevich pulled the Blues within one goal by redirecting Nick Leddy’s pass from the right point.
But Brodin iced the game into an empty net with 1:53 left.
–Field Level Media
