ST. LOUIS _ The story of Magnus Paajarvi's return from the minor leagues was magnified Thursday night at Scottrade Center.
Paajarvi, who toiled with the Chicago Wolves from mid-October until early February, scored two goals in the Blues' 4-1 victory over the Vancouver Canucks.
The Blues' win in their first game at Scottrade in two weeks following a five-game road trip, was their fourth in a row, ninth in their last 10 games and their 40th of the season.
The now have 85 points and will stay in third place in the Central Division, one step ahead of Nashville, which beat Calgary on Thursday in battle of Western Conference wildcard teams.
The Flames will be in town Saturday to visit the Blues, who are on a three-game homestand.
The club played its first full game without injured forward Paul Stastny, who is out week to week with a lower-body injury. If the team is going to get by without Stastny, it's going to need Alexander Steen to hold down the No. 1 center position and newcomer Zach Sanford to reward them for his promotion to the second line.
But for one night at least, the Blues were paced Thursday by their third and fourth lines. Their first two goals came from those two lines, with Paajarvi and Kyle Brodziak accounting for them.
The Blues trailed 1-0 on a goal by Henrik Sedin when Paajarvi scored his first goal of the game. He netted it after receiving a load of help from his linemates.
Nail Yakupov, who was back in the lineup because of the injury to Stastny, began the sequence with some solid work on the forecheck. Then when Vancouver's Alexander Edler tried to clear the puck, Ivan Barbashev deadened the attempt at the blueline. Yakupov kicked the puck back to Barbashev, who fired a pass to Paajarvi, who followed up his own rebound by lifting a second shot over Ryan Miller's pads.
The Blues and Canucks were tied at 1 at the first intermission, and the Blues picked up in the only goal of the second period for a 2-1 advantage.
If looked as if Vladimir Tarasenko might be the one to give the club its second goal of the game, but bidding for No. 35 this season, former Blues goalie Ryan Miller turned him aside 6 { minutes into the second period.
Then after Yakupov drew a roughing penalty on Vancouver's Nikita Tryamkin, it seemed like the Blues' second power-play unit featuring Yakupov, Sanford and Barbashev might put the club ahead. The group had a couple of chances, but couldn't convert.
Yet on another goal in which a heads-up play by the Blues created the scoring chance, Brodziak did in fact give them their first lead of the game.
The team was making a defensive change with Alex Pietrangelo coming onto the ice for Robert Bortuzzo. The Canucks' Christopher Tanev was making an outlet pass and Pietrangelo picked it off at the red line. He carried it back into the offensive zone, then dropped a pass for Brodziak, who released a 30-foot wrist shot that beat Miller for a 2-1 lead with 2:47 left in the second period.
The Blues took that one-goal lead into the third period, but after a holding penalty by Bortuzzo late in the second, Vancouver carried 1:11 of power-play time into the final frame. The Canucks could have tied the score on the man-advantage, but 52 seconds into the period, Daniel Sedin missed a wide-open chance on the doorstep.
The Blues killed that infraction and two others in the third period, as the penalty-killing unit went four for four Thursday and has now erased 16 straight power plays in the last five games.
The PK nullified one of those when the Blues were still clinging to a 2-1 lead. But Paajarvi's second goal of the game came before the Canucks had their other chance on the man-advantage.
In an all-Swede goal, Paajarvi buried a quick a shot after a behind-the-net feed from Patrik Berglund. Fellow countryman Carl Gunnarsson also assisted on the goal, which came with 10:19 left in regulation.
Vancouver challenged the play for offsides, saying that Paajarvi's skates were over the blueline when Berglund carried the puck into the offensive zone. But the goal was held up through the review, giving Paajarvi his seventh goal and 10th point in 20 games since being recalled by the Blues.
The Blues held together for the final 10 minutes, adding a fourth goal from Pietrangelo on an empty-netter.
Jake Allen finished with 27 saves, as the Blues held an opponent to two goals or less for the sixth straight game. The opposition has totaled just seven goals in those six games.
