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Blues move up in standings with win over Flames

Apr 26, 2013 - 3:46 AM St. Louis, MO (Sports Network) - Ryan Reaves scored two goals and the St. Louis Blues took a 4-1 win over the Calgary Flames on Thursday.

The win vaulted St. Louis from sixth to fourth place in the Western Conference standings. With 58 points, the team is one ahead of Los Angeles and San Jose, both of which were off on Thursday. All three teams have one game to play.

Andy McDonald and Alexander Steen each posted a goal while Brian Elliott stopped 18 shots for the Blues, who have won five of six.

"I don't care if its 4-1 or whatever," said St. Louis head coach Ken Hitchcock. "We had too many sloppy plays in the third period that could have ended up in our net. Our goalie made four great saves, and you can't make those mistakes either."

Sven Baertschi scored the lone goal of the game for the Flames, who have lost their past two. Joey MacDonald gave up all four goals on 20 shots in the loss.

"You can see how much it takes to be a playoff team," said Baertschi. "They had an outstanding season and you can tell there were some mistakes that we made that they took advantage of. They made some mistakes, but we couldn't capitalize."

After a scoreless first period, Reaves scored 3:21 into the second while Baertschi answered 4 1/2 minutes later with his third of the year to tie the game.

McDonald, though, scored on a snap shot from the slot off a feed from Chris Stewart for a 2-1 lead exactly halfway through the second period.

Skating on the power play, the Blues made it a 3-1 game as a left circle faceoff win saw the puck come down low and Steen backhanded his second attempt into the net.

Reaves made it a three-goal game 2:10 into the third as Chris Porter's wraparound attempt from the right side saw the rebound come out front where Reaves buried it for his fourth of the year.

Elliott stopped all eight shots he faced in the third to give St. Louis the big victory.

Game Notes

St. Louis closes its regular season at home against Chicago on Saturday ... Calgary plays its final game of the season in Chicago on Friday ... St. Louis took two of three from Calgary ... St. Louis was 1-for-5 on the power play while Calgary was 0-for-4.