ST. LOUIS _ The Blues may have set their roster for the start of the season but they haven't set their lines.
The third line remains a work in progress, with Patrik Berglund centering new acquisition Nail Yakupov and two left wings in the first two games. Dmitrij Jaskin played the season opener against Chicago and Magnus Paajarvi got the assignment on Thursday for the home opener against Minnesota.
"We just want to see who grabs the spot," Blues coach Ken Hitchcock said. "There wasn't really anybody standing out, sticking out. Everybody had their go at things, so he gets his turn and whoever grabs it in the next two or three games will get it."
The line didn't get a whole lot of work on Thursday, but they made their chances count. Yakupov got a goal in his new-home debut and Paajarvi, a one-time teammate of Yakupov in Edmonton, got his first goal of the season as the Blues ran their record to 2-0 with a 3-2 win over the Minnesota Wild at Scottrade Center.
Paajarvi, who had just three goals last season, finished off a nice charge by the line after Berglund got the puck in his own end, fed it to Yakupov on the right and threaded a pass through two defenders to Paajarvi on the left for the redirection.
That goal made the score 3-1 and made Paajarvi a plus-2 for the game, but he lost one, and the Wild pulled within a goal when Charlie Coyle, who had gotten in front of Paajarvi, put in a pass from Jason Zucker with 7:11 to play.
The Blues got another good game from Jake Allen in goal, who again didn't face a lot of shots, just 20, but had to face three breakaways, all of which he stopped (though Minnesota put in a rebound to score on one of them) and made another big save after Minnesota pulled its goalie in the final minutes. The Blues' power play, which converted on three of five chances in Chicago, went 0 for 3, but the penalty kill sparkled amid heavy work, stopping all five of Minnesota's chances.
That was a main reason that the Yakupov and Paajarvi didn't see a whole lot of ice. Yakupov played just 6:36 through two periods and just 2:35 in the second because Hitchcock isn't using him on special teams until he gets acclimated to the team's system.
For Paajarvi, it was his first goal in 24 games, including the playoffs, but he played in just six of those as he was routinely a healthy scratch last season.
Yakupov, playing just his second game with the team after being acquired last Friday in a trade, made it 2-1 with 7:24 to go in the second in a play that showed his two biggest attributes, his speed and his shot.
Yakupov, the one-time No. 1 overall pick in the NHL draft, took a pass from Colton Parayko in the neutral zone and looped from the right side of the ice to the left, entering the zone and firing a shot from the circle that hit Devan Dubnyk in the webbing of his glove but came out and tumbled into the net. The shot might have been tipped by a Wild defender, but it still hit Dubnyk in the glove.
The Blues had two power plays after that and had little to show for them, managing only three shots in the four minutes and regularly having trouble controlling the puck and setting up the unit.
The Wild got even when Vladimir Tarasenko and Kevin Shattenkirk teamed up on a turnover that gave Ryan Suter a breakaway chance on. Tarasenko had been unable to exit the Blues zone and turned to skate back toward Allen. He left the puck for Shattenkirk, but Suter got to it first. Allen blocked Suter's initial backhand, but he managed to corral the rebound just before it got behind the net and slid it in behind Allen to tie the game 3:03 into the period.
In a dominating first period, Minnesota managed just two shots on goal, none of them at even strength. One was on a power play, the other short-handed during an extremely inefficient power play where they had trouble getting the puck into Minnesota's zone. The Blues got their only shot in the period on their only smooth entry, and that came when Minnesota's penalty kill was out of position after Zucker's breakaway.
The Blues' got their goal about two minutes later. During a long possession in which Minnesota twice failed to get the puck out of their zone, Alexander Steen won a battle with Zac Dalpe for the puck along the boards, and Robby Fabbri took it toward the corner. He tried to pass the puck back to Steen and while he didn't get his stick on it, the puck still slid to Steen in the bottom of the circle to Dubnyk's left and he beat him high for the goal.
The Blues effectively killed a power play about 30 seconds later, repeatedly breaking up Minnesota's possession.
