Three Takeaways From Blues' 4-1 Win Against Predators

St. Louis Blues goalie Jordan Binnington (bottom left) makes a save on former teammate and Nashville Predators forward Ryan O'Reilly (90) in a 4-1 St. Louis win, their sixth straight, on Sunday at Enterprise Center (Jeff Curry-Imagn Images)

ST. LOUIS – When the St. Louis Blues began this hot stretch since the 4 Nations Face-Off break resumed on Feb. 22, they were finishing off games in convincing fashion, finding their groove and beating teams going away.

For the second straight game – and day – the Blues won without their best, and they won without some of their best players, but the beat goes on.

Make it six straight wins now, after finishing off the Nashville Predators for the second time in six days and by identical scores, 4-1, at Enterprise Center on Sunday.

The Blues played the game without Colton Parayko (knee), Pavel Buchnevich (illness), and they were missing Oskar Sundqvist and Nick Leddy (each maintenance days) from being dinged up, but the debut of Dalibor Dvorsky, the No. 10 pick in the 2023 NHL Draft, and addition of Matthew Kessel into the lineup didn’t deter the Blues (37-28-7) from moving four points ahead of the Calgary Flames for the second wild card in the Western Conference, five ahead of the Vancouver Canucks and six ahead of the Utah Hockey Club.

“When we’ve been playing well here, every line’s been contributing,” said Blues defenseman Justin Faulk, who had a goal and an assist and was a plus-2 in 23:19. “Even if it’s not offensively, they’re playing well, they’re creating momentum. I think it shows tonight.

“We started [Radek] Faksa, [Nathan] Walker and ‘Torpo’, they’ve been very consistent for us. They got a lot of shifts against their top line to go out there, they play heavy below their goal line and when you have any line you can do that with, it’s tough on opponents. They can’t get matchups, works in our favor a little bit. And yeah as a D-core, we’re confident. We’ve got a lot of older guys back there, a couple younger guys, but they’re playing well. They’ve stepped in and they’re doing their job. When you got two goalies playing behind you as well, that helps the group. It calms the group. We’re feeling good and hopefully it keeps rolling.”

Robert Thomas had three assists, Jake Neighbours had two, and Alexandre Texier, Jordan Kyrou and Brayden Schenn each scored. Kyrou hit the 30-goal mark for the third straight season in a game the Blues had to grind, just like Saturday’s 4-1 win over the Chicago Blackhawks.

“It’s obviously a tough game and a division rival,” Thomas said. “A very good team and they play hard. It was important for us to keep the roll going especially on back to backs and play a smart game. We felt pretty good about it.”

The Blues spent more time than usual in the penalty box (more on that below) and were still able to find a way to grind out a win and keep putting pressure on those teams chasing them.

“A lot of things happened in that game,” Blues coach Jim Montgomery said. “It was a frustrating game because we were in the box a lot, to my dismay, and there’s a lot of whistles so we couldn’t get any flow going. I could sense frustration, especially from our forward group but they did a great job in the second period and it’s just because they couldn’t get in the flow of the game, people couldn’t get on the ice … but then in the third period again for four straight games, our third period’s our best period. The way we manage games now to close the games out, we learned a little bit from the Vancouver game, but we’re much better at it and it’s just an opportunity for us to keep growing. You’ve to win different games. Tonight it was an ugly game to win, but we won it again.”

* Overcoming uncontrolable circumstances – It’s hard to fathom many teams overcoming the things the Blues had to overcome in this game.

It started right at the end of the first period when things got chippy after Alexey Toropchenko checked Nashville’s Jonathan Marchessault along the boards, and Matchessault didn’t like it. He took exception and took not one, not two, but three slashes at the Blues forward, and then took a run at Philip Broberg after a whistle that brought all 10 players into a scrum.

Well, seconds before, Michael McCarron, who drilled Buchnevich in the head on Tuesday in Nashville, was tripped behind the Blues net (I think Jordan Binnington, who was terrific, by the way, clipped McCarron and not Broberg).

So out of all that, referees Brian Pochmara and Brandon Blandina, who began their series of blunders throughout this game, issued Marchessault with a roughing minor – that’s it! -- and Broberg got called for tripping and Toropchenko for roughing.

The Predators came out of that with a power play and how, nobody but the officials know how.

“I don’t know how we ended up shorthanded at the end of the first either,” Montgomery said. “[Marchessault] could have had four minors on the situation, my opinion. I get the luxury of looking at everything afterwards.”

Montgomery was so upset that he came onto the Blues bench long before the resumption of the second period to have a chat with the officials.

“Just asking what they saw and then tell them what we saw,” Montgomery said.

The Blues were ahead 2-0, but Filip Forsberg would score on the ensuing power play to make it a 2-1 game just 1:04 into the second period and make it a game.

There were a number of calls – those happen all the time – that were missed and it happens in such a fast game, so we’re pointing out the most blatant ones, and another came seconds into the third period when Thomas thought he had put the Blues up 3-1 after Predators goalie Justus Annunen couldn’t cleanly handle Faulk’s flip-in on goal. Thomas was there to pry the loose puck and put it into the net for what should have been a 3-1 lead, but Blandina made the poor decision of blowing the play dead when it was clear the puck wasn’t covered.

“I don’t know. I was a little confused to be honest, but when the whistle’s blown, the whistle’s blown,” Thomas said. “That’s all I got.”

In a game of this magnitude with the points so critical to the Blues, it could have been a disastrous result, but in the end, they found a way to overcome what wasn’t in their control when it came to whistles.

“Obviously it’s frustrating, but I think we did a great job responding in the third,” Thomas said. “We came out with a purpose and we kept going and extended the lead. That stuff’s really important, especially when maybe the first or second are a little frustrating.”

Faulk added, “It was a tough game. We’ve had a tough stretch. Not making any excuses. If anything, I’m proud of the group and how we were able to get it done tonight. When you’re a good hockey team, you have to win those games. You have to find ways to do it and dig in. It wasn’t our prettiest, that’s for sure, but we found ways to limit them a bit. Binner played great, penalty kill did a great job and proud of the guys to get the two points tonight.”

* Quick start to game – Each team was coming off a back to back and it was going to be a question of who could get the lead and try to dictate the pace with tired, weary legs kicking in.

The Blues were able to score twice, with Kyrou making it 1-0 at 12:13 of the first period when Neighbours attacked the zone 1-on-3 but feathered a pass to Thomas coming into the zone. He quickly dropped it to Kyrou, who beat Annunen off the post on the short side, perhaps catching the Nashville goalie off guard since he reacted late.

And then on their first power play, after Faulk broke up a 3-on-2 with textbook defending, then drawing a roughing minor on Michael Bunting, Texier scored his first goal since Feb. 2 to make it 2-0 at 16:57 when the Blues put together some crisp passing. First it was Dvorsky off the boards quickly to Zack Bolduc, who found Thomas, and Thomas wired a puck to the back post for Texier to tap in on the backhand.

“I just picked up the puck off the boards and I saw ‘Boldy’ open in the middle so I just gave it to him,” Dvorsky said after playing 10:40 in his debut. “He made a great pass to Robby and then he made a great pass to ‘Tex’ and he scored. Good play, we scored on the power (play).”

* Faulk goal clutch – For much of the second period, the Blues scuffled.

The Predators found life after the Forsberg goal and hemmed the Blues in their zone for large swaths of the second and not allowing them to get into a transition game and outshot them 8-3 in the second and were continuing to press in the third.

Until they did.

All the Blues needed was one moment, one chance at a clean breakout, and got it when Thomas sprung Neighbours and Faulk, and Neighbours found Faulk coming into the zone from the right, and the defenseman wired a wrist shot high to the glove side at 10:30 for a big goal to make it 3-1.

“We were chasing the game a little bit there, kind of in the second and then in the third,” Faulk said. “We didn’t have a ton of offensive zone time, but it was a good breakout by Thomas there and Jake just made a good pass actually. I wasn’t even thinking he was going to do that right away. It was just a good all-around play and nice to change the momentum and get things going our way and give ourselves some breathing room I guess.”

Schenn’s empty-netter with sent the Blues home winners with 38 seconds to play.

“We believed in ourselves the whole way,” Thomas said of the six-game winning streak. “We thought we were playing pretty good hockey for a good chunk of the year and weren’t getting the results. We stuck with it and now we’re getting those results. Been really impressed, especially with our third periods. The last two games, our third periods have been really good. That’s what teams with confidence, good teams do to keep on winning.”

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