By WARREN MAYES Associated Press
ST. LOUIS — Robert Thomas scored two power-play goals in the third period, and the St. Louis Blues beat the Ducks 4-2 on Sunday night for their fourth consecutive victory.
Troy Terry scored two goals for the Ducks (23-42-3) in their sixth consecutive loss. The Ducks were shut out in their previous two games.
“We don’t shoot the puck enough,” Ducks coach Greg Cronin said. “We have the puck in the slot and won’t shoot it. It’s amazing to me.”
The Ducks finished a winless four-game trip to Chicago, Minnesota, Winnipeg and St. Louis.
Rookie goalie Lukas Dostal had 23 stops for the Ducks. Joel Hofer made 26 saves for the Blues.
Jake Neighbours also scored a power-play goal in the third for the Blues. Kevin Hayes scored in the second, and Pavel Buchnevich had three assists.
St. Louis also won on Saturday night, beating Minnesota 3-2 in a shootout.
“Tough back-to-back. Two games in under 24 hours,” Thomas said. “Those games are always tough, especially when they’re kind of waiting on you. We found a way to win and that’s the important thing. I don’t think it was our best game by any means, but when you find a way to win, you can’t complain.”
St. Louis (36-29-3) is four points back of Vegas for the second wild card in the Western Conference. The Golden Knights posted a 3-1 victory over the Devils earlier in the day.
St. Louis came up empty on three power plays in the first period. It was a much different story in the third.
“You can’t take six penalties,” Cronin said. “We killed three yeah but 50% isn’t a good percentage when you’re killing penalties. You don’t get measured by killing penalties in a period. It’s in a game, right?”
Thomas scored on a wrist shot from the slot at 1:53, giving the Blues a 2-1 lead. Neighbours helped with a screen in front of the net.
“He makes a living around the net,” Thomas said about Neighbours. “He’s hard down there, he’s open, he…
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