Roy scores twice, Ducks beat Blues
ST. LOUIS -- Kevin Roy scored a pair of goals and John Gibson stopped 29 shots to lead the Anaheim Ducks to a 3-1 win over the St. Louis Blues on Thursday night.
For the second consecutive game against the Blues, Gibson's bid for his first shutout of the season was spoiled late in the third period, this time on a goal by Patrik Berglund with 5:53 to play.
On Nov. 29, Gibson stopped the first 36 shots by the Blues before Kyle Brodziak scored twice in the final four minutes in a 3-2 Anaheim win.
The Blues were shut out in their previous game, losing 3-0 to Tampa Bay on Tuesday night.
Andrew Cogliano broke a scoreless duel at 11:11 of the second period when he won a battle for a loose puck in front of the St. Louis net and poked it past goalie Jake Allen.
The goal came minutes after Gibson made one of his biggest saves of the night, stopping a breakaway attempt by Joel Edmundson.
Roy increased the lead to 2-0 at 5:43 of the third period when Allen failed to control the puck off a shot by Cam Fowler, leaving it for Roy to slap into the net. He added his second goal less than three minutes later, after a pass deflected off Berglund right onto his stick.
The Ducks improved to 3-0-3 in their last six games, killing off three St. Louis power plays, one of which included a shot by Vladimir Tarasenko that hit the crossbar in the closing seconds of the second period.
The Blues' scoring slump has coincided with injuries that have taken Jaden Schwartz and Alex Pietrangelo out of the lineup. Tarasenko has scored two goals in his last 11 games, and one of those was into an empty-net.
NOTES: Blues D Jay Bouwmeester was a late scratch, missing his second consecutive game with an undisclosed injury. He predicted after the morning skate that he would play and participated in the pregame warmup. ... Blues RW Chris Thorburn also was in the lineup after being a healthy scratch five of the previous six games. ... The Blues hope backup G Carter Hutton, out with a lower-body injury, will be able to play in one of the back-to-back games this weekend against Winnipeg. ... LW joseph Blandisi returned for the Ducks after missing four games because of an upper-body injury. ... The Ducks, starting their second six-game road trip in the last three weeks, play Saturday night at Washington.