Wings streak his half dozen in St. Louis

The Detroit Red Wings and St. Louis Blues have reversed roles in recent days.

While the Blues busted out of the gate earlier this month, opening up the new season with wins in each of its first three league contests, the Wings stumbled to an 0-2 start in Florida.

A few weeks later, teams met at the Scottrade Center in St. Louis and it was the Wings capturing a 2-1 win in shootout to extend a winning streak to six games and move into the upper reaches of the East Conference with a 6-2 record.

Meanwhile, St. Louis is nowhere near a panic state, but the team has dropped four of its past five now.

In other NHL action involving Midwest based teams on Thursday (Oct. 27) Devan Dubnyk backstopped the Minnesota Wild to its second consecutive shutout win as the team blanked the Buffalo Sabres at the Keybank Center in Buffalo, 4-0 and the Columbus Blue Jackets dropped a 3-1 decision to the host San Jose Sharks playing at the SAP Center.

Wings 2 at Blues 1

Teams battled through 65 minutes of regulation and overtime and then entered the eighth round of the shootout before Wings’ captain Henrik Zetterberg finally brought this one to an end with his goal.

Both starters, Peter Mrazek of the Wings and Jake Allen of the Blues allowed one goal through the first seven shootout rounds — Alex Steen scoring for the Blues with the first shot of the event and Gustav Nyquist burying one for the Wings in the second round.

Both of the regulation time goals came in the second period, Kevin Shattenkirk wiring a wrist shot home from the blue line 2:31 into the period for his third of the season and Frans Nielsen tying it with a shorthanded goal about 11 minutes later with his second of they year.

Mrazek turned aside 31 shots to pick up the win and Allen handled 26 in goal for the Blues.

Wild 4 at Sabres 0

The Wild wrapped up a four-game trip east coast trip  with a 4-0 win in wrapping, the back-to-back shutouts at Boston and Buffalo salvaging a 2-1-1-0 record out of a trip that didn’t start well.

Dubnyk was tested reguarly, turning aside 38 shots to collect the win while the Sabres’ shooters connected three times on 21 shots against Anders Nilsson and Mikko Koivu fired the final one into an empty Sabres’ goal.

Joel Eriksson-Ek and Jason Zucker both scored their second of the season in the opening period and after a blank second period, Ryan Suter scored a clincher for the Wild just before the three-minute mark of the third.

Blue Jackets at Sharks

The Sharks continued its three-game California trek with a tough loss in San Jose.

Sergei Bobrovsky continues to give the team solid work in goal but on this night he was matched by Martin Jones of the Sharks, the home team carrying a 1-0 lead into the final period as Borovsky turned aside 16 of 17 and Jones handled all of the 21 shots he faced in the first 40.

Joonas Donskoi collected the lone goal in that stretch and Tomas Hertl doubled the margin with 7:55 to go in the contest.

Scott Hartnell finally found a way past Jones with 2:50 to play getting the Jackets to within a goal of tying it, but Hertl’s fourth one one second to go into an empty Columbus net clinched this one for the home side.

Friday Games

The Jackets will move on to Anaheim to wrap up the road trip on Friday (Oct. 28) while the Chicago Black Hawks will play in New Jersey against the Devils.