his first eight games. Goaltender Jaroslav Halak tied Glenn Hall for the Blues' franchise record of 16 career shutouts when Halak shut-out the Edmonton Oilers on March 23, stopping all 19 shots on net. It was his 25th career shutout in the NHL. Roman Turek is third on the franchise list with 13 shutouts. A freefall at the end of March, losing four of five games, dropped the Blues to eighth place in the Conference, just barely hanging on to a playoff spot. A few days before the NHL trade deadline (April 3), the Blues, on March 30, picked up a left-shooting defenseman Jordan Leopold in a trade with the Buffalo Sabres to bolster its defense. April In his second trade in two days, on April 1, general manager Doug Armstrong, after pushing for 10 months, finally acquired left-shooting defenseman Jay Bouwmeester from the Calgary Flames. In his final trade, his third in four days, just before the deadline on April 3, Armstrong traded defenseman Wade Redden to the Boston Bruins for a conditional seventh-round draft pick in 2014. April 16 saw head coach Ken Hitchcock earn his 600th NHL win with the 2–1 shootout victory over the Vancouver Canucks. He became the 11th NHL coach to reach that milestone. Of the 11, only two have higher career point percentages: Scotty Bowman (.657) and Joel Quenneville (.612), with Hitchcock at .595. Ironically, Bowman and Quenneville were both former Blues' coaches. The Blues clinched a playoff spot in the top eight teams in the Western Conference after their 3–1 home win against the Colorado Avalanche on April 23, giving them a 27–17–2 (56 points) record. Final seeding will depend on the result of their final two games of the season at home against the Calgary Flames and Chicago Blackhawks, with a chance for fourth place giving them home advantage in the first round. They reached the playoffs for 25 consecutive years from 1979 to 2004, and their third in the last eight seasons. The team was 17–14–2 (36 points), sitting at ninth place in the Western Conference at the end of March, and were in danger of not making the playoffs. A 12–3 run in April, however, pushed them to fourth place and home ice in the first round of the playoffs against the Los Angeles Kings. Goaltender Brian Elliott was named the NHL's Second Star of the Month for April,