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ST. LOUIS (AP) St. Louis coach Mike Yeo turned to desperate measures to try and snap his team out of its roughest stretch of the season.Yeo decided that the fourth line would start the game Wednesday against the Detroit Red Wings.He told the players about his unorthodox choice minutes before they took the ice.”It got a chuckle out of the guys Custom Nashville Predators Jerseys ,” said Scottie Upshall, a member of the trio.The bold move paid dividends as Upshall scored a second-period goal and Carter Hutton made 35 saves to help the Blues snap a seven-game losing streak with a 2-1 victory.St. Louis won for the first time since beating Winnipeg 5-2 on Feb. 9.Alex Pietrangelo also scored for the Blues, who were coming off an 8-3 loss at Minnesota on Tuesday night.”This is just what we needed,” Hutton said.Upshall banded with Kyle Brodziak and Chris Thorburn to add some early-game energy.”Those guys are workers,” Yeo said. ”We needed guys to step up and I believe those guys were ready.”Explained Brodziak, ”He wanted us to get out there and set the tone.”Upshall scored for the first time since Dec. 30, beating Jimmy Howard off Colton Parayko’s rebound at 1:12 of the second period.Pietrangelo scored on a blast from the faceoff circle with 5:23 left in the third period.”This was a good character win,” Pietrangelo said. ”After last night a lot guys put a lot of effort in.”Brodziak agreed www.officialdevils.com , ”I thought last night could have been pretty deflating. But we came back. Everybody refocused. This was big.”The Blues were outscored 29-10 during the seven-game skid, their longest since they dropped seven in a row from Dec. 26, 2009, to Jan. 7, 2010.Detroit fired 13 shots at Hutton in the third period.”I thought we matched their intensity,” Red Wings center Henrik Zetterberg said. ”The game was a little back and forth. It would have been nice to get the first goal, but they got that one. And we still hung in there.”Detroit coach Jeff Blashill was pleased with the effort, but not the result.”I thought our guys played hard and competed hard New Jersey Devils T-Shirts Authentic ,” Blashill said. ”We’ve got to just keep grinding.”FREE FALLINGOn Dec. 10, the Blues were 21-8-2 and tied with Tampa Bay for the most points in the NHL at 44.NOTES: Howard made 23 saves. … St. Louis C Patrik Berglund was a healthy scratch for the first time since March 12, 2015. … Pietrangelo played in 600th career game, all with St. Louis. … Zetterberg has 68 points in 68 career games against St. Louis.UP NEXTRed Wings: At Winnipeg on Friday night.Blues: At Dallas on Saturday night. ST. LOUIS (AP) Duncan Keith scored a power-play goal with 8.5 seconds left and the Chicago Blackhawks beat St. Louis 4-3 on Wednesday night to hurt the Blues‘ playoff hopes.Andreas Martinsen, Blake Hillman and Alex DeBrincat also scored, and Jean-Francois Berube made 30 saves. The Blackhawks beat the Blues for the first time in three meetings this season.Vladimir Tarasenko and Brayden Schenn each had a goal and an assist for the Blues. They have lost four straight to fall a point behind idle Colorado for the second wild-card spot in the Western Conference.Robert Bortuzzo also scored for the Blues, and Jake Allen made 22 saves.DUCKS 3, WILD 1ANAHEIM New Jersey Devils Hoodies Authentic , Calif. (AP) – Ondrej Kase scored the tiebreaking goal on a rebound with 3:56 to play, and Anaheim clinched its sixth consecutive playoff berth with a victory over Minnesota.Kase secured his first 20-goal season by jumping on a long rebound of Josh Manson’s shot, and Andrew Cogliano added an empty-net goal with 2:13 left. Ryan Miller made 26 saves in his first start since March 9 for the Ducks, who have won eight of 10 in their usual late-season surge to the playoffs.Nick Ritchie also scored, and Manson had two assists as the Ducks officially extended the NHL’s second-longest streak of consecutive postseason berths. Anaheim also leapfrogged archrival Los Angeles into third place in the Pacific Division, leading by one point with two games to play for both clubs.Matt Dumba scored a power-play goal and Devan Dubnyk stopped 28 shots for the Wild, who took their fifth loss in seven games during what turned out to be a meaningless contest for the playoff-bound club.SENATORS 4, SABRES 2BUFFALO New Jersey Devils Hats Authentic , N.Y. (AP) – Matt Duchene scored his team-leading 27th goal for Ottawa, helping assure Buffalo of finishing last in the NHL standings.Max McCormick, Ryan Dzingel and Alexander Burrows, with an empty-netter, also scored for the Senators, and Craig Anderson stopped 32 shots.Ryan O’Reilly and Kyle Okposo scored for the Sabres. Buffalo had already extended its franchise-worst playoff drought to a seventh season and will finish last for the third time in five years.