The St. Louis Blues scored twice over a 56-second span in the second period as they defeated the Minnesota Wild 5-2 on Sunday afternoon and tied the best-of-seven Western Conference Quarterfinal series at two games apiece.
The Blues came out with a sense of urgency after dropping Game 3 on Friday night and outshot Minnesota 18-5 in the first period. Despite allowing a goal to Jordan Kyrou, Marc-Andre Fleury was instrumental in killing off a double-minor for high sticking and a 4-on-3 power play to keep the game close.
After Kirill Kaprizov tied the game with his fifth goal of the playoffs, the Wild went into the second intermission tied at 1 but the Blues continued to tilt the ice in their favor until David Perron gave them the lead at 10:30 in the second period.
St. Louis doubled up less than a minute later when Matt Dumba turned the puck over to Jordan Kyrou, who scored his third goal of the series to put the Blues ahead 3-1.
Matt Boldy made things interesting with his first career playoff goal in the third period, but Minnesota didn’t get any closer and the Blues added an empty-net goal and a power play goal in the final two minutes to runaway with the 5-2 win.
Jordan Bennington, starting in goal in place of Ville Husso, stopped 28 of 30 shots to snap his personal nine-game playoff losing streak. Both goals allowed were at even strength, as the Wild went 0-of-4 on the power play.
The loss sends the Wild back to St. Paul for a critical Game 5 on Tuesday night.
