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Elliott, Blues nip Wild

Jan 1, 2014 - 6:57 AM St. Paul, MN (SportsNetwork.com) - Brian Elliott turned away 24 shots as St. Louis held on to beat Minnesota, 2-1, at Xcel Energy Center.

T.J. Oshie and Jaden Schwartz tallied for the Blues, winners of three straight and eight of 11.

"Everyone is chipping in and playing hard defensively and it's paying off right now," said Schwartz.

Ryan Suter scored and Josh Harding made 21 saves for the Wild, who have dropped six in a row.

"There were a lot of things that were much better tonight, but we're not in a position where we can feel good about those things," said Minnesota head coach Mike Yeo. "We'll build off them, look at them, but there's still other things that we're not doing well enough to win hockey games."

Schwartz forced a turnover from Minnesota's Mikael Granlund inside the Wild zone, then backhanded a pass to Oshie, whose resulting shot at 6:49 of the second period snapped a scoreless deadlock.

Schwartz capitalized during an odd-man rush, beating Harding at 15:59 from the right wing as the Blues swooped in on Harding 4-on-2

Minnesota made a last gasp with its net empty, as Suter scored with 8.3 seconds to play, but left too little time to produce an equalizer.

Game Notes

The Blues have won the last seven meetings with the Wild, since Minnesota's 3-2 shootout victory on Nov. 19, 2011 ... Elliott picked up his first assist of the year, a secondary helper on the Schwartz marker ... Both clubs are back in action on Thursday, as St. Louis hosts Los Angeles and Minnesota welcomes Buffalo.