Blues end flat run with 3-2 win over Carolina

A lackluster stretch of games for the St Louis Blues ended, for now, Saturday night with a strong, 3-2 win over the visiting Carolina Hurricanes.

“It was our typical you get it up the wall to the winger, play it to a centerman heading north with speed, and I just yelled to [Brayden Schenn ] too, and he did an incredible no-look pass that put me in a great shooting spot,” Upshall said of the game-winning goal he scored.. “I was able to put one in.”

Kyle Brodziak and  Patrik Berglund also0 scored for St Louis who won for just the second time in seven games.

“For one, [defenseman Jay Bouwmeester] hasn’t been in for a while and just to give a chance to protect him there,” Blues head coach Mike Yeo said. “The guys have been playing well, and it freed up some opportunity to get some extra ice time to some guys up front, so there were a couple things that went into it.”

Lucas Wallmark scored his first NHL goal, Derek Ryan scored for the Canes in the loss as Carolina dropped to 18-13-7.

“I think we’re on a bit of a roll,” Ryan said. “We’re playing good hockey and we’ve beat some good teams lately, so we’ve got to continue to do what’s made us successful in these past nine games. We just can’t get away from our game like we did in the first period. We have to put together a full 60 minutes and make sure we do that on a consistent effort. It’s hard to do.”

Carter Hutton made 23 saves to pick up the win.

“It’s a big win, it’s a good hockey team over there too,” Hutton said. “They pressed, we bent but didn’t break. We made it interesting there, obviously taking a penalty. We fought them off and held on for a big win.”

The Blues improved their record to 24-15-2.

“I think for the most part we were generating a lot of shots and rebounds, that sort of thing, which I think is a focus when you’re not scoring a lot of goals, just to get pucks at that net. The goals we did score, some guys made some pretty good plays,” the Blues’ Jay Bouwmeester said after the tight win.

[WATCH: All Hurricanes vs. Blues highlights]

Scott Darling made 26 saves in taking the loss.

“I thought we got more competitive as the game went along. I didn’t think we were as competitive as we needed to be early. We need a day off by the looks of it. We didn’t look very energetic here today,” Carolina head coach Bill Peters said after the game.