ST. LOUIS _ With Carter Hutton impressive in the nets, and goals from Scottie Upshall and Alex Pietrangelo, the St. Louis Blues ended their losing streak at seven games with a 2-1 victory over the Detroit Red Wings.
Nursing a 1-0 lead for most of the final two periods Wednesday, Pietrangelo gave the beleaguered Blues some much-needed breathing room with his 11th goal of the season with less than 5{ minutes to go in the game.
Jaden Schwartz did the dirty work, digging the puck out behind the Detroit net and then feeding Pietrangelo in the right faceoff circle. Pietrangelo's shot beat Red Wings goalie Jimmy Howard glove side, giving him goals in back-to-back games for the first time since October. (Oct. 21 against Vegas and Oct. 25 against Calgary.) Pietrangelo had also scored in Tuesday's 8-3 abomination against Minnesota.
But the 2-0 lead didn't last long. Detroit made things interesting for the crowd of 18,813 at Scottrade Center. After pulling Howard, Detroit's Andreas Athanasiou scored his 13th goal of the season with 1 minute 45 seconds remaining to cut the lead to 2-1.
But the Blues hung on to improve their record to 35-26-4, good for 74 points. Detroit fell to 26-27-10.
Upshall scored at the 1:12 mark of the second period to give the Blues a 1-0 lead.
