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Boyes, Kariya key Blues' power surge

Oct 24, 2007 - 5:21 AM ST. LOUIS (Ticker) -- The St. Louis Blues picked an opportune time to get their power play in gear at home.

Brad Boyes scored a pair of man-advantage goals and Paul Kariya added an empty-net tally and three assists as the Blues defeated the Anaheim Ducks, 4-2, on Tuesday.

Boyes scored his fifth and sixth goals of the season to snap St. Louis' 0-for-16 drought on the power play at home.

The surge also kept the defending Stanley Cup champion Ducks winless on the road. They fell to 0-5-1 and have been outscored, 23-10, this season.

With the game tied at 1-1 midway through the second period, Boyes gave St. Louis the lead by deflecting Kariya's slap shot from the right side past goaltender Jean-Sebastien Giguere at 10:27.

Boyes added his second tally of the game six minutes later. The 25-year-old center joined former Duck Kariya and Lee Stempniak on a rush and, after some crisp passing, beat Giguere to give the Blues a 3-1 advantage.

"It's taken me 21 games just to score one, but I come here and it's been good," said Boyes, who has scored five goals in four home games. "It's easy when you're playing with those guys, but I still think we can improve."

St. Louis outshot Anaheim, 14-5, in the second period - and the Blues' perseverance paid off.

"We got it going, kept the pedal down and were rewarded in the second period," Kariya said.

"In the second period, we drew some penalties because our forechecking was good, but capitalizing was important," St. Louis coach Andy Murray said.

Mark Mowers cut the deficit to 3-2 at 17:38 of the second period, when he tapped Corey Perry's feed off the boards past netminder Manny Legace.

The Blues were able to stave off the Ducks in the third, successfully killing four power plays before Kariya's empty-netter with 33 seconds remaining capped the scoring.

"We could have done some things differently on the power play," Anaheim coach Randy Carlyle said, noting his team's 0-for-5 effort with the man advantage. "Obviously, the difference in the hockey game was that they scored on theirs and we didn't score on ours."

Anaheim drew first blood just 97 seconds into the second period.

Defenseman Kent Huskins skated into the play and wristed a shot which deflected off blue-liner Barret Jackman's stick and Andy McDonald's skate before going into the net. The play was reviewed, but since McDonald was not using a kicking motion with his skate, the goal stood, giving Anaheim a 1-0 lead.

Keith Tkachuk evened the game for St. Louis with just over seven minutes expired in the period.

After Tkachuk won the faceoff, he headed to the net as defenseman Jay McKee wristed a shot on goal. The puck deflected off a defender to Tkachuk, who backhanded it into the net to tie it at 1-1.

"(Tkachuk) got us going," Kariya said. "He was going to the net, creating a lot of traffic, and it was nice to see him rewarded there."

Legace stopped 14 shots to improve to 9-1-0 in 14 career games against Anaheim. His only loss came almost eight years ago in his first start against the then-Mighty Ducks on November 16, 1998.

Giguere made 29 saves in a losing effort.

Injuries also hampered the Ducks. Ryan Getzlaf played just two shifts in the second period, effectively reducing Anaheim's depth to three lines, and Rob Niedermayer was a scratch. Carlyle would only describe each player's injury as "upper body" and did not offer a more detailed explanation.

"We had 11 forwards and seven defensemen, then we lost Geztlaf ... Numbers don't lie," Carlyle said. "We were dominated for a while in the second period, but once we got into the third, we gave ourselves a chance."