NHL: St. Louis 5, Detroit 4

DETROIT, April 2 (UPI) -- David Backes scored his third goal of the game with 4:07 to play Thursday, bringing the St. Louis Blues a huge 5-4 victory over Detroit.

The Blues defeated the Red Wings for the first time this season and made sure they would be among the top eight in the Western Conference. St. Louis began the night in ninth place, one point behind idle Nashville and Anaheim, which faced off against Vancouver.

Detroit failed for the third time to reach 50 wins for the season. The Red Wings are trying to become just the third team in NHL history to get to that mark four consecutive years.

The teams combined to score six times in the third period. St. Louis took a 4-2 lead 2:53 into the final stanza on Andy McDonald's power-play goal, but tallies by Johan Franzen and Niklas Kronwall tied it.

Kronwall's slapshot came with 4:43 to play, but Backes produced a slapshot of his own 36 seconds later that got the best of Ty Conklin.

Chris Mason made 34 saves to get the victory.

Conklin finished with 28 saves.