Blues top Wild 3-1, grab 3-0 series lead
Jaden Schwartz scored the go-ahead goal in the second period and Jake Allen made 40 saves to lead the St. Louis Blues to a 3-1 win over the Minnesota Wild on Sunday for a 3-0 lead in their first-round playoff series.
Colton Parayko also scored for the Blues and Alexander Steen added an empty-netter for St. Louis, which will try to sweep the series Wednesday night in St. Louis.
Charlie Coyle scored for Minnesota, which got 28 saves from Devan Dubnyk.
Schwartz had a powerplay goal at 15:19 of the second period to put the Blues one win away from the second round. He scored with 2:27 left in the third period of Game 2 to give St. Louis the 2-1 win.
Allen was the star of the first two games. He stopped 74 of 76 shots for a .974 save percentage against a Wild team that ranked second in the NHL in scoring during the regular season.
The Blues scored just 3:25 into the first period when Parayko beat Dubnyk high with a shot from the high slot after a nice pass from Patrik Berglund. The goal was the third in 23 playoff games for Parayko, who scored four goals in 81 games this season.
St. Louis outshot Minnesota 15-9 in the first period, but couldn’t build on its early lead. Vladimir Tarasenko and Steen both hit the post.
Minnesota tied it with a goal from Coyle with 7:01 left in the second period. Coyle scored off a rebound of a shot from Zach Parise, giving the Wild their first evenstrength goal of the series and Parise his third point in three games.
The Blues scored their first power-play goal of the series from Schwartz with 4:41 remaining in the second period. Schwartz, who took a high stick from Ryan White to earn the penalty, scored his second goal of the series off a pass from Steen behind the net.
Minnesota put 19 shots on goal in the third period, but couldn’t beat Allen.
The Wild pulled Dubnyk for an extra attacker with 2:10 remaining and Steen scored his first of the playoffs, assisted by Berglund and Vladimir Sobotka, into the empty net with 1:11 left. NOTES >> The Wild made two lineup changes for Game 3. D Christian Folin was scratched in favor of D Nate Prosser. Folin was minus-2 in the first two games of the series. RW Ryan White made his Wild playoff debut in place of rookie Joel Eriksson Ek . ... Blues C Jori Lehtera was a healthy scratch for the second consecutive game.