Breaking down the Blues' 3-1 win against the Wild with greasy Toropchenko goal to grab lead, Neighbours scores 20th, Krug seals win with empty-netter; Binnington makes 21 saves

Wild-Blues takeaways (3-2-24) (3:07)

It won't go up in any art gallery any time soon, but the two points gained by the Blues (31-26-3) keeps them in the Western Conference wild card race, now five points behind the Los Angeles Kings. They remain seven in back of the red-hot Nashville Predators, who have won eight in a row.

Torey Krug had a goal and an assist, Alexey Toropchenko and Jake Neighbours scored, and Jordan Binnington made 21 saves to move past Curtis Joseph for sole possession of third on the all-time wins among Blues goalies with 138.

Let's break the game down with takeaways from this victory:

* First Period -- The teams were kind of feeling each other out at the outset, and Minnesota wanted to be more mindful of its game after being blasted by the Predators, 6-1, on Thursday, and the Wild was.

But Toropchenko broke the ice when he was able to get a tip on Scott Perunovich's shot from the right point at 6:34 to make it 1-0, a puck that hit the near post, off Marc-Andre Fleury's left skate and trickled back across the line.

"Yeah, just go to the hard areas and try to park yourself in front of the goalie and create chaos," Toropchenko said. 'Just be smart to get into the right position where the 'D' can shoot for your stick, or you can tip it. Even without a tip, the puck will go into the net. Just need to go to the hard areas and play hard."

Penalties were a theme in this game, and the Wild had a number of them, seven minors in all, and it started with Joel Eriksson Ek going off for tripping Perunovich at 13:29, and then Zach Bogosian going to the box for tripping at 14:50.

The Blues had the chance to build on their lead but after some good looks, they couldn't convert on the 39-second 5-on-3.

Binnington didn't see a ton of pucks in this game, but this little ticklish save with the knob of his stick to thwart Kirill Kaprizov late in the first period was crucial.

Justin Faulk would go to the box for holding at 18:50, but the Blues would carry a lead into the second; they outshot the Wild 8-7 in a rather dis-spirited opening 20.

* Second Period -- The Wild did not score on its power play that carried into the second but were all over the Blues early, and the Blues' bend-but-don't-break play finally broke when Jon Merrill tied it 1-1 at 10:06 on a seeing-eye shot as a result of Zachary Bolduc not getting a puck out at the blue line, and then Faulk's turnover on a pass that eluded Kevin Hayes went to Merrill, who beat a screened Binnington on the play.

Minnesota had the momentum, but it was taken away in a key part of the game when Vinni Lettieri tripped Perunovich at 12:14, and on the ensuing power play, Neighbours made it 2-1 at 12:53 when he collected a rebound of a Robert Thomas wrister and slid it past Fleury.

"That one was just lucky," Neighbours said. "It probably would have went in if it didn't hit me, but it hit me in the leg and was kind of just sitting there for me. It's just the benefit of being around the net. Sometimes you get some lucky bounces.

"I don't know. I haven't really thought about (20 goals) too much. It's pretty cool, a couple congrats from the teammates, but they should be congratulating themselves. I owe it all to them. It has nothing to do with me. I've never had too many crazy individual efforts. It's all been my teammates finding me around the net or shooting them off me. I owe it to them."

The Wild challenged for goalie interference on the play but it was clear Neighbours did not.

"I thought it was offside originally maybe that that's what they were challenging for maybe, but when I saw the replay, I was pretty confident it was a goal, yeah," Neighbours said.

The Blues had two more chances to extend the lead when the Wild was whistled for delay of game when it lost the challenge at 12:53 and then Declan Chisholm was called for holding the stick at 16:01.

The Blues had more sustained zone time but couldn't find the net.

"It was OK," Krug said of the power play. "Even though we weren’t scoring on a lot of them, we did generate some chances and some momentum. To be an elite power play and a good power play in this league, you have to extend leads, especially in the third period when you get chances. Unfortunately, we couldn’t get one to extend it, but that’s just part of it."

The Blues were outshooting the Wild 16-12 through two with the chance to close out the game.

* Third Period -- But boy, it was a jailhouse rules moment for both teams near the Blues goal in the first minute.

Minnesota came hungry and did everything but tie it, but Binnington and the Blues were able to escape.

Faulk went to the box again, this time for tripping at 6:50, but the PK did its job.

Jacob Lucchini (tripping) at 10:10 and the Wild bench was called for too many men at 14:34, and yet the Blues still couldn't ice the game.

Until Krug threw one 190 feet into the empty cage for a goal with 48.5 left to ice the win.

"You try to win games, meaningful games," Krug said. "That’s what you want as a hockey player and playing down the stretch. We’ve just got to do our part, focus on ourselves. We play other teams head-to-head here down the stretch, so we’ve just got to give ourselves a chance.”