Blues use special teams to defeat Wild

ST. LOUIS -- The St. Louis Blues scored three power-play goals and one shorthanded in a 6-3 win against the Minnesota Wild at Scottrade Center on Saturday.
It's the first time since Oct. 25 that the Blues scored multiple power-play goals. They were 3-for-8 against the Wild after going 5-for-38 the previous 12 games.

It's the first time the Blues scored three power-play goals and a shorthanded goal in a game since Nov. 11, 2014, against the Buffalo Sabres.
WATCH: [All Wild vs. Blues highlights]
"Some big goals," Blues coach Mike Yeo said. "Timely goals for sure. That's nice."
Jaden Schwartz scored twice,
Sammy Blais
scored his first NHL goal, and Paul Stastny, Dmitrij Jaskin and Kyle Brodziak scored for St. Louis (17-6-1), which lost to the Nashville Predators 2-0 on Friday.

Alexander Steen, Colton Parayko and Vladimir Tarasenko each had two assists for the Blues, and Jake Allen made 22 saves.
St. Louis has won 12 straight in the second of back-to-back games, including four this season.
"I didn't know that," Schwartz said. "Good off-season training maybe. Guys are in good shape.
"I think with just the performance we had on Friday, when you don't play your best, you come back hungry. You obviously don't want to lose two in a row at home on the weekend."
Charlie Coyle, Zack Mitchell and Eric Staal scored for the Wild (11-9-3), and Devan Dubnyk made 34 saves. Minnesota was 6-1-1 in its previous eight games and won 3-2 in a shootout against the Colorado Avalanche on Friday.
The Blues took a 3-0 lead in the first period.

"You never want to go down three to this team," Dubnyk said. "One-nothing is fine. Obviously you don't want to give up a second one but we did a good job hanging in there and coming back, but it seemed like every time we made a play to get it within a goal or two goals, we did something that brought us back out of it. We could probably look at a couple of specific plays that took us out of that one."
Stastny gave St. Louis a 1-0 lead with a power-play goal at 6:15, tipping Vladimir Sobotka's pass. Jaskin made it 2-0 at 11:09 after a Kyle Quincey turnover caromed to the slot, and Schwartz made it 3-0 at 16:54 by deflecting Tarasenko's pass in front.
Blais' giveaway gave Coyle a shorthanded opportunity, and he beat Allen at 15:02 of the second period to make it 3-1.
Brodziak scored a shorthanded goal at 2:09 of the third period to make it 4-1, but Mitchell scored on the power play at 3:31 to make it 4-2.

Staal's power-play goal, Minnesota's 10th in the past 21 attempts, at 8:52 made it 4-3.
Schwartz made it 5-3 at 11:36, and Blais scored at 14:12, St. Louis' third power-play goal, to make it 6-3.
"It's nice to have my first goal in a win," Blais said. "... I played my game. I was good on the forecheck, I finished my hits, and it's nice to have a goal at the end. I'm just going to try to keep going like that."

Goal of the game

Schwartz's goal at 11:36 of the third period.

Saves of the game

Allen's saves on Tyler Ennis and Mitchell at 10:15 and 10:16, respectively, of the first period.

Highlight of the game

Blais' goal at 14:12 of the third period.

They said it

"When you try to chase the game it's really difficult because when you make a mistake, you've got to press and they take advantage of it and it's usually in the net." -- Wild coach Bruce Boudreau
"When I saw the puck go in I was really happy and [Steen] made a good play on that. It's one I'm going to remember all my life, that's for sure." -- Blues right wing Sammy Blais on scoring his first NHL goal
"When you're in a tough building on the road against a real good hockey team, then they kind of roll a little bit, and it's going to take a while to kind of weather that. We've just got to do a better job not getting down 3-0. It's everyone, including myself." -- Wild goalie Devan Dubnyk
"I thought we came out strong. I don't think we were too happy with our start [Friday] night and I think we wanted to come back and take that out. Both teams are playing on a back-to-back, a little less juice, but obviously I thought we started strong in the first period." -- Blues goalie Jake Allen

Need to know

Niederreiter's six-game goal streak, which tied a Wild record, came to an end. He also had an eight-game point streak end (seven goals, two assists). ... Schwartz has 11 points (four goals, seven assists) in the past seven games.

What's next

Wild: At the Winnipeg Jets on Monday (8 p.m. ET; TSN3, FS-N, NHL.TV)
Blues: Host the Anaheim Ducks on Wednesday (9 p.m. ET; FS-MW, PRIME, NHL.TV)