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Down 3-1 after two periods, St. Louis (22-19-6,
50 points) came out with purpose in the third. Mike Hoffman cut
the Minnesota advantage to one with his second power-play goal
of the night 3:49 into the third. Then, a wide-open Jordan Kyrou
got enough of the puck to push it through the legs of Wild
netminder Cam Talbot (28 saves) at the 7:41 mark of the final
period.
With the game looking to be headed to overtime, Thomas, who
assisted on Kyrou's goal, pushed to the net, found some space
and flipped the puck past Talbot to put the Blues ahead and on
their way to a third consecutive victory. St. Louis is trying to
hold on to the fourth and final playoff spot in the West
Division.
Hoffman had a three-point night while Thomas, Kyrou and David
Perron (two assists) had two points apiece for the Blues. St.
Louis goaltender Jordan Binnington made 26 saves.
Marcus Foligno had a goal and an assist while Joel Eriksson Ek
and Jonas Brodin scored for the Wild (31-14-3, 65 points), who
saw their season-high seven-game winning streak end in
disheartening fashion. Jordan Greenway added two assists.
St. Louis, which snapped a five-game road skid, owned a 13-10
shots-on-goal advantage in the first period, but Minnesota went
into the first intermission up 1-0 thanks to Brodin's successful
blast from the near point with 2:13 left in the opening frame.
Minnesota made it 2-0 just 32 seconds into the middle period
when Eriksson Ek had no problem pouncing on the rebound of
Greenway's shot and burying it into an open net.
The Blues cut that deficit in half in the early minutes of a
second-period power-play chance. Taking a perfect pass from
Vladimir Tarasenko, Hoffman put the puck on net and barely
through the legs of Talbot at 10:27, giving St. Louis a
power-play goal in eight straight contests.
Minnesota, though, regained its two-goal advantage a little over
a minute later when Foligno drove the puck through traffic and a
screened Binnington for a 3-1 lead.
Wild defenseman Jared Spurgeon played in his 700th NHL game and
finished with a plus-1 rating on the night.
--Field Level Media
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