ST. PAUL, Minn. _ Don't look now, but the Wild are officially on a roll.
In peeling off points for the ninth time in 10 games, the Wild also won a fourth consecutive game for the first time this season Sunday when they edged the St. Louis Blues, 2-1.
The Wild, 6-1-3 in their past 10 games, moved two points behind the Blues for second in the Central Division. It was also their fourth straight win on home ice with the final game of the homestand coming Tuesday against Florida.
The Wild got second-period goals by Matt Dumba and Nino Niederreiter and 22 saves from Devan Dubnyk, who improved to 6-0-2 in his past eight starts. Mikael Granlund scored an empty-net goal to provide the Wild's first two-goal outcome in seven games. Eric Staal picked up his 800th career point on the goal.
The Blues were the better team on the ice in the first period, out-attempting the Wild 23-10 on shots. Luckily for Minnesota, Dubnyk was there for 11 saves and allowed the Wild to escape the first scoreless.
The Wild did have a couple sustained forechecks, especially after Kurtis Gabriel fought heavyweight Ryan Reaves. Also, Staal couldn't convert a breakaway, which, other than the shootout winner against Edmonton in the previous home game, has been a season-long trend.
Staal has six goals this season. If he scored on half his breakaways, he'd probably have 11 or 12.
But the Wild were able to jump out to a 2-0 lead in the second period. Just 45 seconds in, Dumba took Zach Parise's pass and crossed the blue line.
It looked like Allen thought he was going to pass to Jason Pominville to his right. Instead, Dumba ripped a shot over Jake Allen's blocker for his second goal in two games.
After a faceoff later in the period, Niederreiter scored his eighth goal. He took Ryan Suter's pass after an Erik Haula faceoff win, circled the back of the net all the way to the top of the circles before whipping a shot through traffic that found the back of the net for his eighth point in nine games.
But with the Wild buzzing, Allen, who was 9-1 in his past 10 starts, proved his worth by making a number of key stops to keep the deficit to two goals.
That proved big because late in the period, red-hot Vladimir Tarasenko made it 2-1 after the Wild got a little greedy late in a shift.
Jared Spurgeon skated keep into the offensive zone with the puck and instead of unleashing a shot, he skated himself to a bad angle. He gave the puck to Staal, who's attempted pass or shot pinballed up high for the Blues to transition with speed and the Wild flat-footed.
Spurgeon caught up, but Robby Fabbri spun away and crossed a pass to Tarasenko, who was not picked up coming off the bench by Parise.
Young referee Jake Brenk, 34, who was born in Detroit Lakes and played at Minnesota State-Mankato, was the subject of much scorn. The Wild didn't like minors he called on Parise for slashing and Staal for goalie interference, so imagine what coach Bruce Boudreau felt when Brenk wiped out what the Wild felt should be a 3-1 lead.
In all fairness, it looked like he made the right call. After Allen denied Mikko Koivu at the goalmouth, Koivu pushed at Allen's left pad. The momentum forced Allen back and the puck over the goal line just as Brenk blew his whistle.
That's not permitted, and after a video review, the call stood.
