GLENDALE, Ariz. _ The St. Louis Blues had a chance to clinch a playoff spot Wednesday night, but they knew they were going to need some help. A win alone over the Arizona Coyotes wouldn't do it. They also needed the Los Angeles Kings to lose in Calgary.
The Blues took care of their part of the equation, but the Kings didn't, so an official playoff berth will have to wait. The Blues got goals from Patrik Berglund and Vladimir Tarasenko and an empty-net goal from David Perron, and a typical performance from Carter Hutton in goal in a 3-1 win over the Coyotes at Gila River Arena.
A playoff spot written in ink won't come earlier than Friday now, with the Blues needing just a point out of their game with Colorado or for the Kings not to get two points in their game at Vancouver. But the win still produced very tangible results, and in some ways not clinching was a good thing.
The win jumped the Blues back into third place over Nashville in the Central Division, with both teams having six games to play, and pulled them even with Calgary in points. That doesn't matter as long as the Blues are in third, but should the Blues drop back to fourth _ and Nashville is every bit as hot as the Blues are _ it could be the difference between the first and second wild-card spot, which is the difference between getting Chicago and not getting Chicago in the first round of the playoffs. By the time the Blues take the ice again, they could be back in fourth; the Predators face Toronto on Thursday.
Hutton continues to be dominant when playing away from St. Louis. He narrowly missed his fifth shutout in nine road starts when Arizona's Alex Goligoski scored a power-play goal with 5:23 to play. (St. Louis product Clayton Keller, in his second NHL game, had an assist.) Hutton's goals-against average since the coaching change on Feb. 1 remains at 1.00, the best in the league in that span.
It was the Blues' third game against the Coyotes in a 12-day span, and they swept the games by a combined score of 10-2.
For as much as the Blues controlled the game, goals were hard to come by against the Coyotes, which led to more anxious moments than might have been expected.
The Blues were in control of the game throughout, and the Coyotes had just seven shots on goal in the first period and six in the second. Hutton faced only a few tough chances, but he handled them. Arizona had a power play early in the third period that included a breakaway for Jakob Chychrun, which Hutton stopped.
The Blues controlled the first period, outshooting the Coyotes 16-7 and outscoring them 1-0. Colton Parayko hustled and lunged to keep the puck in the Coyotes' zone and got the puck to Magnus Paajarvi in front of the goal, who fed it to Berglund charging in on the left, and he beat Arizona goalie Louis Domingue.
For Berglund, it was his 22nd goal of the season, matching his career high set in 2010-11, his third year in the league. He got there after scoring just one goal in his first 30 games, picking up 21 in the next 46.
Tarasenko made it 2-0 when he put in a rebound of a shot by Jay Bouwmeester 2:25 into the second period. The rebound came out long and Tarasenko scored from the bottom of the circle to Domingue's right. It was the 36th goal of the season for Tarasenko, putting him alone in fourth in the league.
For all that domination, the Blues struggled to score on Domingue, Arizona's backup keeper, who got the game as the Coyotes gave Mike Smith a rest after a five-game trip. With the score 2-1, David Perron couldn't get his stick on a rebound behind Domingue in the crease _ he needed his arms to be about 2 inches longer _ and then Hutton had to make a save on Oliver Ekman-Larsson, who had an awful lot of time for a guy standing a few feet from the goal. Hutton got his leg on the shot and then plucked the puck out of the air.
Arizona's hopes vanished when Christian Dvorak was called for holding with 1:28 to play, giving the Blues a power play and keeping Arizona from pulling its goalie until 30 seconds remained, at which point Perron got his goal.
