Wild top Blues, 5-2

In St Louis, Marc-Andre Fleury made 29 saves for the Minnesota Wild in a 5-2 win over the Blues on Saturday.

The Wild improved to 21-13-2.

“We started a little sleepy, but I don’t think anything changed, I just think we got into the game and got our legs under us,” Minnesota coach Dean Evason said. “Guys were always positive on the bench, even though the start wasn’t what we wanted. We were able to find ourselves, obviously, pretty quickly.”

The Blues dropped to 17-17-3.

“Listen, we made too many mistakes tonight to win the hockey game. End of story,” St. Louis coach Craig Berube said. “I thought we had a good first period, a lot of urgency. I thought we were skating. Then second period, to me, we didn’t skate. We didn’t move the puck very well, we didn’t skate.”

St Louis’ Calle Rosen  and Wild’s Matt Dumba traded first period goals for a 1-1 tie.

Ryan Hartman scored early in the second period to give the Wild a 2-1 lead before Robert Bortuzzo tied it 2-2 at 5:01

Hartman hit for his second of the period and game, 12 seconds later for a 32 lead headed into the third period.

The Wild’s Jared Spurgeon scored 49 seconds into the final period for a 4-2 advantage.

“I feel like we owed them from last playoffs,” Fleury said. “It doesn’t fix last spring, but still, it’s nice to get a win here.”

Jordan Greenway hit an empty net in the 16th minute of the period for the 5-2 final.

Jordan Binnington made 27 saves in the Blues loss.

“Obviously, the two goals I think affected us in the second period,” Binnington said. “I’ve got to be better. I was too casual, and it came back to bite me in the butt. It happens. Overall, I think we’ve been working hard and we’re building, and we believe in our team.

“Not the way you want to finish this one off this homestand. We’ve got a day off and right back to work and keep getting after it.”