Wild keep pace in Central with win against Blues

ST. PAUL, Minn. -- Ryan Hartman and Sam Steel scored short-handed goals 20 seconds apart, and the Minnesota Wild kept pace in the Central Division with a 5-3 win against the St. Louis Blues at Xcel Energy Center on Saturday.

Gustav Nyquist had two assists in his Wild debut, and Filip Gustavsson made 37 saves for Minnesota (45-24-10), which had lost three in a row (0-2-1).
The Wild are tied with the Colorado Avalanche for second place in the Central Division; the Avalanche won 4-3 at the Los Angeles Kings on Saturday. Minnesota is two points behind the first-place Dallas Stars, who won 2-1 in a shootout against the Vegas Golden Knights.
"It helps to win," Hartman said. "We lost three in a row. You can't really do that in the playoffs. We're ready to get these next games going."
Nyquist, who had been out with a shoulder injury since Jan. 25, was acquired from the Columbus Blue Jackets on Feb. 28.
"I was just trying to play my game out there and just trying to get going again after a long period off," Nyquist said. "So, it felt good to finally play hockey again."
Justin Faulk had two assists, and Jordan Binnington made 25 saves for St. Louis (37-36-7).

"Those two short-handed goals we gave up kind of deflated us for a while," Faulk said. "We didn't really play a good second period at all. We came in, wanted to play a hard 20 minutes in the third period and see if we could kind of create something, put them on their heels a little bit. We were able to do that for the most part. [We] had some looks to get it even, but it just didn't go our way."
Sammy Blais redirected Faulk's shot through traffic for a 1-0 lead at 5:19 of the first period.
Hartman tied it 1-1 at 11:17 on a short-handed breakaway after poking the puck free from Jakub Vrana, then stole it from Kasperi Kapanen and fed Steel on a 2-on-1 to give the Wild a 2-1 lead at 11:37.
"Yeah, I mean they had a couple careless plays on the drops," Hartman said. "Just trying to take advantage of it. One breakaway. I guess you can call it a breakaway, a semi-breakaway. It kind of got us in front when maybe we weren't really pushing too hard."
Gustavsson made 17 saves in the first.
Frederick Gaudreau extended the lead to 3-1 with a power play goal at 14:27 of the second period.
Jared Spurgeon made it 4-1 with 35 seconds left in the second, finishing a 2-on-1 with Nyquist.

"I like the first and the third," Blues coach Craig Berube said. "I didn't like the second. We turned pucks over too much in the neutral zone."
Jake Neighbours cut it to 4-2 at 1:11 of the third period, and Pavel Buchnevich made it 4-3 when he redirected Nick Leddy's shot at 7:51.
Jonas Brodin scored an empty-net goal at 18:07 for the 5-3 final.
"We've talked about it pretty much all year, that different people have stepped up," Wild coach Dean Evason said. "The commitment was real good. Obviously, do we want to give up a lead like that? No. There's some stuff to work on like I said, but we enjoyed our commitment tonight."
NOTES: Minnesota forward Kirill Kaprizov had three shots on goal in 20:26 of ice time after missing 13 games because of a lower-body injury. … It was the two fastest short-handed goals since Steve Begin and Blake Wheeler scored 15 seconds apart for the Boston Bruins on April 10, 2010. Hartman became the 13th player since 1933-34 to get two short-handed points in 20 seconds or less, and the first to do so since Peter Forsberg (11 seconds on Dec. 3, 1995, with the Colorado Avalanche). … St. Louis forward Robert Thomas played 18:12 and won nine of 18 face-offs after missing five games with an upper-body injury.