Wild completes sweep of Blues

ST. PAUL, Minn. -- Cal Clutterbuck scored for the third time in two nights, and the Minnesota Wild beat St. Louis 3-1 on Saturday while sending Blues goalie Jaroslav Halak to an early exit.

Halak was pulled for Ty Conklin midway through the second period after Kyle Brodziak's goal made it 3-0 Minnesota. Antti Miettinen also scored a power-play goal for the Wild, who got another strong start by goalie Niklas Backstrom and outshot the Blues 31-25.

Patrik Berglund scored the only goal for St. Louis.

Clutterbuck, also the NHL leader in hits, leads the team with a career-high 17 goals.

Playing a home-and-home, back-to-back weekend set with the Blues, the Wild stretched their home winning streak to a season-high four games. St. Louis fell to 7-3-1 on the second night of back-to-back games this season.

Minnesota raised its record to 9-2 in its last 11 games and improved to 17-7-1 over the past 25 games.

The Wild had a stranglehold on the pace, the flow and the direction of the game, except for a five-minute surge by St. Louis started by Berglund's goal late in the second period.

In the super-tight West race, there is plenty of room for the Blues to finish strong and sneak into the playoffs. But with these back-to-back losses to the Wild, one of their primary competitors for a spot, and the continued absence of David Perron to a concussion the Blues are in an urgent situation even though they've played fewer games than every team ahead of them in the standings.