Bruins hold off Blues in wild one

ST. LOUIS -- David Krejci had two goals and two assists for the playoff-chasing Boston Bruins in a 6-5 win against the St. Louis Blues at Scottrade Center on Friday.
Boston maintained a one-point lead over the Detroit Red Wings for third place in the Atlantic Division. Detroit completed a 3-2 win against the Minnesota Wild as the Blues were threatening to tie the Bruins in the third period.

"It was kind of nerve-wracking at the end of the game, but we got the job done, and at this point of the season that's all that matters," Krejci said. "Must win. I think we played with desperation and showed it tonight from the beginning."
Patrice Bergeron scored his 30th goal, Boston's second power-play goal, with 3:24 remaining to make it 6-4 on a shot from the slot. St. Louis challenged for goalie interference but the call on the ice was upheld after review.

"Right now it's about the wins, and we found a way," Bergeron said. "... I was definitely more happy to get that extra goal, and that extra goal that we needed."
Kevin Shattenkirk scored for St. Louis with 20.7 seconds left with a sixth attacker to make it 6-5. The game ended with the Blues on a power play.
Loui Eriksson and Matt Beleskey each had a goal and assist for the Bruins (41-29-8), who won for the second time in eight games (2-6-0).
"You see Detroit won, we don't want to wait until the last minute," Bruins coach Claude Julien said. "Hopefully this gets us back on track here. They are not easy games, but as I told the players before the game, anybody in this League can win on any given night, so why not us? Just go out there and play to win and we did just that."

Boston defensemen John-Michael Liles and Torey Krug each had two assists, and Tuukka Rask made 25 saves to win for the second time in six games.
The Blues (46-23-9) had a five-game winning streak end. They remained two points behind the Dallas Stars for first place in the Central Division; each team has four games left.
Paul Stastny had a goal and assist for the Blues, and goalie Brian Elliott made 18 saves before being replaced at the start of the third period by Jake Allen, who made four.
"We weren't ready to go," Blues coach Ken Hitchcock said. "We weren't sharp, we weren't ready to go. It was really an extension of the third period of the last game here. We kind of backed off a little bit there and we weren't ready to go tonight. We got going a little bit at periods of time. We had a stretch in the second period where we were good. Obviously a big push in the third period when we scored the third goal, but we weren't sharp, and even saying that, we scored five goals. Some of the goals were really good. They were hard-working goals, but we weren't sharp with the puck and we weren't really sharp in our defending, our communication."

After Stastny tied the game 2-2 at 5:39 of the second period, the Bruins scored three goals in an 8:23 span to take a 5-2 lead.
Beleskey scored on a slap shot from the high slot, beating Elliott after Krejci won an offensive-zone faceoff from Jori Lehtera to make it 3-2 at 9:51. Frank Vatrano made it 4-2 at 15:27 when he scored from the slot off a Lee Stempniak feed, and Krejci used Eriksson as a screen to beat Elliott at 18:14 for a power-play goal to make it 5-2. Eriksson had an assist for his 500th NHL point.
The Blues made it 5-4 with goals from Robert Bortuzzo at 3:56 and Alex Pietrangelo at 7:38 of the third period.
"In the third, I thought we had our compete level rise a lot," Pietrangelo said. "We had some really good opportunities offensively and getting the puck out of our zone with some ease.

"Especially in the first two periods, especially in the first we should have raised our work ethic a bit. We knew they were going to come at us pretty hard. That's a desperate team."
The teams combined for three goals in 2:31 of the first period.
Jaden Schwartz put the Blues up 1-0 when he converted Lehtera's saucer pass at 14:04, but Eriksson got behind Blues defenseman Joel Edmundson after a stretch pass from Liles and beat Elliott on a breakaway at 14:45 to tie it 1-1. Krejci put Boston up 2-1 at 16:35 when he got behind Edmundson and followed up a Beleskey slap shot. It was the first time since March 16 (six games) the Blues trailed in a game.

Boston's two goals came on three shots. During the Bruins' previous seven games, they scored 10 goals.
"It was good to see the puck go in the net for us," Krejci said. "We've been struggling the last few games. Hopefully we can build some confidence."
Hitchcock coached his 1,400th NHL game to tie Pat Quinn for seventh in history. Julien coached his 700th game with Boston.