Ducks fall to St. Louis Blues, 2-1, finish trip without a win

ST. LOUIS — The Ducks closed out a winless five-game trip Thursday night as St. Louis rookie Colton Parayko scored the tiebreaking goal midway through the third period to carry the Blues, 2-1.

The Ducks, who were outscored, 15-5, on the 0-4-1 trip, entered the game ranked last in the NHL in scoring (1.0 goals per game) and were without captain Ryan Getzlaf, who missed his second game because of appendicitis.

“We do need a break and we’re not getting them right now, and that’s what usually happens when a dark cloud’s over you,” Coach Bruce Boudreau said.

Hampus Lindholm scored and Frederik Andersen finished with 31 saves for the Ducks.

Defenseman Parayko has been coming up big for the injury-depleted Blues.

“He’s getting a lot of big points, timely points, timely goals, timely assists, whatever,” Blues Coach Ken Hitchcock said. “He’s having a big impact with us right now.”

Vladimir Tarasenko also scored and Jake Allen stopped 22 shots to help the Blues win for the sixth time in the last eight games (6-1-1).

St. Louis is currently without forwards Paul Stastny (broken right foot), Jaden Schwartz (fractured right ankle) and Patrik Berglund (right shoulder) and defenseman Kevin Shattenkirk (lower body).

“Huge two points,” Tarasenko said.

Lindholm gave the Ducks a 1-0 lead at 2 minutes 33 seconds of the second period when he was able to poke in a rebound of Corey Perry’s shot for a power-play goal, his second of the season.

The Blues tied the score less than three minutes later when Tarasenko scored his sixth of the year on a back-and-forth two-man breakaway with Jori Lehtera after a stretch pass from Steve Ott.

“They had a little bit of a mishap and turned over and all of a sudden you see two superstars on the other end and they are playing give and go, and what a heck of a goal,” Ott said.

Tarasenko left the game with four minutes remaining in the period after taking what looked like a high hit as well as a knee-to-knee collision from Shawn Horcoff. He went to the locker room for the remainder of the period but returned for the third.

Parayko scored the go-ahead goal with 9:29 left in the third. Scott Gomez won a faceoff in the offensive zone and rookie Ty Rattie fed the puck to Parayko, whose shot from near the blue line bounced off the boards and ricocheted off Andersen’s skate and into the net.

The goal was Parayko’s fourth goal of the season, which leads all NHL defensemen.

“Unfortunately it came right back and hit my skate as I’m trying to seal that post,” Andersen said.

“I thought we played great again, pretty much the whole game. Especially the first two periods.”

Boudreau said Andersen kept the Ducks in the game.

“He can sit there and say it was a bad goal but Freddy did make about four great saves after that to keep it to 2-1, so he kept us in the game,” he said.