Blues beat Red Wings ending seven game slide

Carter Hutton #40 of the St. Louis Blues blocks a shot from the Detroit Red Wings at Scottrade Center on February 28, 2018 in St. Louis, Missouri. (Photo by Joe Puetz/NHLI via Getty Images)

The St. Louis Blues had nothing to lose and came out winners at Scottrade Center Wednesday night. With a heavy push at the start, the home team pulled the third period together that beat the Detroit Red Wings 2-1 ending their seven game losing streak. Carter Hutton earned the victory against their opponents who fell for the first time in two games.

Detroit had a different look when vying for their third consecutive win. With the sudden departure of Tomas Tatar, it left the Red Wings significantly less on scoring as the Slovakian had been lighting up the lamp recently. They came into St. Louis as they are on a worse course having traded off Paul Stastny and lost their seventh straight. This gave the Red Wings a shot to keep their road positivity alive with the hunt close for the second wild card spot in the Eastern Conference.

They got started with leading the Blues in the first four minutes of the period before getting a power play. While nothing came of the two minute man advantage, the Red Wings had leverage for themselves. They had a 6-3 run through eight minutes of play when the first break came into play. Another moment of frustration reflected from the Blues to the Red Wings but Detroit remained firm in their mission to score. With nine minutes left, Detroit got three shots at Hutton but he blocked each one trying to keep his team’s opportunities alive.

St. Louis got a power play with six minutes left in the period, but despite efforts from Vladimir Terasenko at Detroit netminder Jimmy Howard went unanswered keeping the game scoreless. They had time left on the clock to get pucks in the Detroit zone but saves from Howard got his defense out of trouble ending twenty minutes dead even. Detroit outshot them 15-8 but with no real show of force, it left the home team with chances to get in front.

They did so early in the period with a lot of fight against the Red Wings that soon led to an offensive rush. Kyle Brodziak took off with the puck with three defenders on him. He did not let that get to him as a shot to Howard bounced off with St. Louis there to get the rebound. After Colton Parayko’s failed attempt, Scotty Upshall came to the puck to get it through Howard for the goal and his seventh of the season.

It lit a fire under their offense to battle the Red Wings and compete with half the game in the books and the lead theirs. The agenda of holding the Red Wings to very little had them bettering on the faceoff and putting as many pucks as they could on Howard. A kill of Detroit’s power play was one that took the Red Wings for a flip as they were coming up short and running out of ideas with less than three minutes left in the period. When the horn sounded to end the second, the Blues had 12 shots on goal outshooting Detroit who were still trailing in the game.

The third was tight for both teams involved as every shot on goal was one that would change the tide of the game. The Blues took their shots at making the margin bigger for themselves. While usually on the offensive side of the stick, Anthony Mantha was playing defense with his body that blocked a shot in front of Howard that took him back to the bench in considerable pain.

Despite his injury and the one that Andreas Athanasiou suffered, the Red Wings pushed the envelope on shots to Hutton in order to level the game with less than eight minutes in regulation. The situation became hopeless for them as a fight for possession in the Detroit zone cashed in for the Blues. Jaden Schwartz gained control behind Howard finding captain Alex Pietrangelo out open. The team leader delivered the one-timer straight at Howard’s right to score their second straight goal.

The Red Wings had only one option to them and pulled Howard with 3:39 left in the game needing a miracle to overcome the deficit. It took time for them to make something happen with half the time left. With two opportunities, Detroit cut the margin in half with Athanasiou getting on the board with his 13^th. The Blues almost got it back to a pair with a one on one that almost went their way but Howard right there to make the save. He came back out of the net but it put them 5 on 4 for the duration of regulation due to matching penalties.

The game ended with the Blues holding on as they had the Red Wings beaten to bring an end to their long losing streak. Although coming so close to his fourth shutout this season, Hutton had a reason to be pleased stopping 35 shots for a .972 save percentage and first win since Feb. 8. With the Blues back on the right track, the Red Wings gap from a wild card spot got bigger as the loss made getting into the postseason farther away as the season closed in on its conclusion.