St. Louis trails Colorado by point for second wild card, Anaheim by two
for first, Minnesota by three points for third in Central after fourth win in a row
ST. LOUIS -- When they couldn't buy a win in February, the Blues are now finding ways to win in March and continue to make a push for the playoffs.
The Blues moved within one point of the second wild card in the Western Conference with a 4-1 win against the Vancouver Canucks at Scottrade Center on Friday.
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| (St. Louis Blues photo)
Patrik Berglund celebrates after scoring a shorthanded goal, one of two for
the Blues forward on Friday night in a 4-1 win over the Vancouver Canucks.
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The Blues (41-28-5), who have won four straight and six of seven, trail the Colorado Avalanche by one point and the Anaheim Ducks by two. St. Louis is three points behind the Minnesota Wild for third place in the Central Division.
The four wins in a row matches a season high done three times now.
"It's taking it day by day right now," Blues center Kyle Brodziak said. "We did a good job, got the win tonight. Tomorrow's a while new story."
Patrik Berglund scored twice, and Jake Allen made 19 saves for St. Louis.
"It feels really good to score goals always," Berglund said, "but at this time of year, it doesn't matter who scores. We just need all the points that we can get here to get into the playoffs."
The news wasn't all good for the Blues though. It was disclosed that defenseman Carl Gunnarsson will miss the remainder of the season with a torn left ACL sustained in the first period. Gunnarsson will have surgery when the swelling goes down and be re-evaluated in six months, which puts him right at or near the start of the 2018-19 season.
"I'll have more of an update once I get the update, but it doesn't look good," Blues coach Mike Yeo said after the game before the team announced the news.
The Blues can possibly move back into a playoff spot when they take on the red-hot Columbus Blue Jackets, who have won 10 in a row, on Saturday.
But this recent stretch of winning seven of 10 (7-2-1) and six of the past seven (6-1-0) after going 0-6-1 has put them right on the cusp of being back inside the top eight.
"We're a desperate team and we're finding ways to win," said Berglund, who had his first multi-goal game since March 21, 2017. "That's all that matters right now."
Vladimir Tarasenko, who returned after missing two games with an upper-body injury, and Dmitrij Jaskin scored for the Blues.
"It's nice to get a win," Tarasenko said after scoring his team-leading 28th goal. "The game wasn't that easy. I believe we still can play better. Overall it's a good game and a very important two points for us."
Anders Nilsson made 21 saves for the Canucks (26-40-9), who are 1-8-0 in the past nine games.
Berglund's goal at 4:44 of the second period was the fifth shorthanded goal of the season for the Blues and made it 2-0. He got a breakaway pass after Brodziak deflected a zone entry pass, chased the puck, chipped it past Derrick Pouliot before curling the pass around Pouliot to an on-rushing Berglund, who made no mistake in beating Nilsson low, short side.
"I knew right away that there was going to be two of us," Brodziak said. "He was coming pretty close behind me, just from the way that play happened at our blueline. I was just hoping I was going to be able to be there, I didn't have a whole lot of gas left in the tank. Thankfully, I got to the puck and he made a nice finish."
And Berglund was grateful.
"Really good play," Berglund said. "I didn't even expect he was going to make that play. He gave me a breakaway, so it was a good job by him."
Yeo was not surprised, considering the way Brodziak's played all season.
"First off, to win the race, to win the puck, but have the vision and understand that 'Bergy's got a step on that guy, to make that play, a guy like 'Brodzy' doesn't make that play ever unless he knows 'Bergie's clearly in there because you're killing a penalty," Yeo said. "If there's a turnover at that time, that's a pretty high risk play. He knows 'Bergy' is there, he just has to put it into space. It's one thing to know it and to think it. It's another thing to execute it."
It was Berglund's first multi-goal game since March 21, 2017 against the Colorado Avalanche.
Sam Gagner made it 2-1 with his first goal since Jan. 6 (26 games) at 14:47.
But Tarasenko scored 14 seconds into the third period to give St. Louis a 3-1 lead and take that momentum forward the rest of the period.
"Of course it's easier to play when it's 3-1, but we still like have 19 minutes to play and I think we played a pretty good third period and finished it really good," Tarasenko said.
Jaden Schwartz went in on the forecheck and stripped Christopher Tanev of the puck, threw it into the crease area where Tarasenko found a loose puck and calmly tucked a backhand under Nilsson, who was expecting a quick shot but got a changeup.
"I don't know what I tried to do," Tarasenko said. "Maybe make pass to 'Schenner' [Brayden Schenn] to maybe shoot, but whatever it is, it counts.
"Like I said, it's really exciting to get a win here, especially at home. Fans was really good today as always and now we need to get ready for tomorrow's game."
Jaskin made it 4-1 at 17:31 on a crash play at the net when he followed up Colton Parayko's seeing-eyed shot from the point that was double-deflected in on the way in by Vladimir Sobotka and Tage Thompson before Jaskin, in front of Nilsson, banged it home.
"For me, that's where 'Jasky' scores his goals, that's where he's got to go, he's got to be in a hurry to get there," Yeo said. "He's been physical, he's getting involved, he's strong on pucks, he's a guy I definitely trust in his defensive game. How difficult it is this time of year to score goals, when you have a guy that has that kind of size, that frame, that strength and he is willing to go to the front of the net, then that helps your team a lot."
Berglund scored 40 seconds into the first period for a 1-0 lead on a backhand high from the low slot off well-played feed from Alex Pietrangelo.
"I came in full speed and I figured I would just put it on the net real quick and [Nilsson] wasn't really ready, so it feels good," Berglund said.
It was Berglund's fourth goal in six games after just three the previous 26 games.
"I look back at last game, I thought he was really physical last game," Yeo said of Berglund. "There couldn't be a better time for a guy like 'Bergy' to start finding some confidence and feel good about his game. I would say you look at that line as a whole when 'Steener' [Alexander Steen's] there and 'Bergy' and 'Brodzy,' just the way we use them.
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| (St. Louis Blues photo)
Blues goalie Jake Allen makes one of his 19 saves during a 4-1 win over the
Vancouver Canucks on Friday. Allen is 6-1 his past seven starts.
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"It's funny, this game, obviously confidence plays a very big part in it, well, I think sometimes players make the mistake of looking for a goal or an assist or a point to gain confidence when really, the way you can do it is always there for you. It can be a penalty kill, it can be a good defensive shift. I think 'Bergy,' when he really started to dig into the role that that line provided for us, as far as a real sound aggressive forechecking, hard in the offensive zone line, he's slowly built more and more confidence in his game and it's starting to show."
Now it's on to try and defeat the hottest team in the league, the Blue Jackets.
"I would say they are the hottest team," Yeo said. "When you're on a streak like that, they're playing exceptionally well right now. Pre-scouting them in their game against Boston when we were getting ready for Boston, they looked really good. Heck of a challenge. They're sitting there waiting for us, we're going to be short-manned here, the back-to-back games, so, you know what, those are fun challenges to face."
* NOTES -- The Blues recalled forward Sammy Blais from San Antonio under emergency conditions.
Blais was not on the ice pregame and could only play if the Blues needed him to with another one of their forwards missing but everyone played in the game. But Blais did travel to Columbus.
Forward Nikita Soshnikov, who missed Friday's game with an upper-body injury, did not make the trip.
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