ST. LOUIS (AP) - Nail Yakupov had a goal and an assist and Jake Allen made several big saves as the St. Louis Blues beat the Minnesota Wild 3-2 on Thursday night.
Alexander Steen and Magnus Paajarvi also scored for St. Louis. Patrik Berglund had two assists and Allen made 18 saves for the Blues, who have won four of their past five home openers.
Ryan Suter and Charlie Coyle scored for the Wild, who were 4-0-1 in their previous five season openers.
Yakupov put the Blues ahead 2-1 on a slap shot at 12:36 of the second.
The shot went off Devan Dubnyk's glove and floated above his shoulder into the net.
Yakupov found Paajarvi as the last man on a 3-on-2 rush to give the Blues a 3-1 lead early in the third.
Steen's first of the season came off an unintended assist by Robby Fabbri, who had lost control of the puck while making a move to the net. Steen snapped the loose puck past Dubnyk to give the Blues a 1-0 lead.
The Blues outshot the Wild 14-2 in the first, but Allen came up with a big save on the Wild's first shot of the game making a pad save on a short-handed partial break by Jason Zucker just mre than eight minutes into the game.
Suter drew the Wild even three minutes into the second period. A turnover by Kevin Shattenkirk allowed Suter to break in and after Allen made the initial save he was able to bury the rebound.
Allen kept the game even robbing Eric Staal on a breakaway seven minutes into the second period. Allen came up big five minutes later when Staal found Zach Parise alone in the slot on a 2-on-1.
Dubnyk had 28 saves.
Notes: Blues F Jaden Schwartz (elbow) missed his second game. Blues associate coach Mike Yeo went 173-132-44 as the Wild's head coach from 2011 until last February. Blues assistant coach Rick Wilson was an assistant with Minnesota from 2010 through the end of last season. Wild assistant coach Scott Stevens played for the Blues in the 1990-91 season. The Blues are celebrating their 50th season and five members of their inaugural team - Fred Hucul, Bill McCreary, Norm Beaudin, Larry Keenan and Bob Plager - took part in the pregame ceremony. The Wild have their home opener against Winnipeg at 6 p.m. Saturday. The Blues host the New York Rangers at 7 p.m. Saturday.