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Wild nip Blues to take home-and-home set

Feb 13, 2011 - 6:54 AM St. Paul, MN (Sports Network) - Niklas Backstrom made 24 saves and Cal Clutterbuck scored the first of three consecutive Minnesota goals, as the Wild topped the St. Louis Blues, 3-1, in the back end of a home-and-home set.

Antti Miettinen and Kyle Brodziak also scored for the Wild, who earned a shootout victory against the Blues on Friday and have won three in a row overall. Minnesota also improved to 9-2-0 in its last 11 games.

Jaroslav Halak started in net for St. Louis and let in three goals on 20 shots through a little more than 28 minutes. Ty Conklin made 11 saves the rest of the way, but the Blues couldn't come back and fell to 2-4-3 in their last nine contests.

Clutterbuck lit the lamp with 1:09 left in the first period just after a Wild power play ended. They kept the puck in the zone and were still in a power- play setup when Clutterbuck received the puck in the left circle, about one second after the man advantage expired. He quickly fired a shot that slid between Halak's pads.

The Wild then scored twice early in the second period to take control.

Miettinen netted a power-play one-timer from the slot at 4:07, and Brodziak stuffed a loose puck during a 4-on-4 at 8:22.

"I thought for 40 minutes, they had about six minutes that I felt they were kind of controlling," Wild head coach Todd Richards said of the first two periods. "But other than that, I thought for 34 minutes we played some real good hockey, and got contributions from everyone."

Patrik Berglund got the Blues on the board with a power-play score later in the period, but Backstrom held strong otherwise. He stopped all seven third- period shots he faced to secure the win.

The teams engaged in a brief post-buzzer brawl, during which Wild defenseman Clayton Stoner bloodied the face of Blues forward David Backes. Both received a fighting major and game misconduct penalty.

Game Notes

Minnesota has won four consecutive home games against St. Louis...The Wild were 1-for-6 on the power play, while the Blues were 1-for-4...Clutterbuck scored three times during the home-and-home.