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Blues-Flames Preview

Dec 22, 2009 - 8:45 PM By MATT BECKER STATS Senior Writer

St. Louis (16-14-5) at Calgary (20-11-4), 9:30 p.m. EDT

This season has been a tough one for the St. Louis Blues, but left wing Andy McDonald feels like the team is finally getting things turned around.

Coming off their highest-scoring game in nearly six years, the Blues look to beat the Calgary Flames for the second time in as many weeks and win three games in a row for the first time this season Wednesday night.

St. Louis (16-14-5) moved out of last place in the Western Conference with a 3-1 victory at Vancouver on Sunday, then won 7-2 at Edmonton on Monday. That marked the Blues' best offensive output since a 7-4 victory over Chicago on Jan. 12, 2004.

The power play has been a big reason for St. Louis' struggles, but the Blues finally got it working against the Oilers. St. Louis came in ranked 29th in the league on the power play before scoring four times with the man advantage.

"It was nice to get some goals there," said center Alexander Steen, who had a goal and three assists. "We've been struggling but working extremely hard to get that going. It was nice to see a few pucks go in."

McDonald scored twice for the Blues, who are on the verge of their first three-game win streak since April 7-12.

"We've been struggling to play consistently and it feels like it is starting to turn for us a little bit now," McDonald said.

Despite the disappointing season, the Blues have played well away from St. Louis. They are 2-0 on a four-game trip and 10-3-3 on the road.

St. Louis picked up a rare home win last Tuesday, 4-3 over Calgary, as McDonald and Steen snapped respective goal droughts of 14 and 12 games.

Just as the Scottrade Center hasn't been kind to the Blues, Calgary's Saddledome hasn't been much friendlier. St. Louis has one win in its last eight games there, a 3-2 victory March 20.

The Flames (20-11-4) are coming off a 5-3 loss to Nashville at the Saddledome on Saturday, their first regulation defeat there since Nov. 19. Calgary has gone 1-3-1 since winning six of eight.

The Flames had a chance to win Saturday with the score tied at 3 after two periods, but allowed two third-period goals. That has been a common theme lately for Calgary, which was outscored 4-1 in the third during the last three games.

"We've got ourselves in a bit of a rut where in third periods we're not closing it out and finding ways to get points out of it and wins," said captain Jarome Iginla, whose two second-period goals gave the Flames a 3-2 lead.

Iginla ended an eight-game goal drought and leads the team with 19 goals and 37 assists.

Miikka Kiprusoff is coming off a rough performance, surrendering four goals on 19 shots Saturday. He was not in net against the Blues last week, but went 6-1-0 with a 1.84 goals-against average in his last seven home matchups with them.