Avs double up Blues

On Thursday night, the Colorado Avalanche joined the Vegas Golden Knights as clinchers of playoff spots in the Stanley Cup Playoffs this season.

The Avs defeated the St Louis Blues, 4-2.

“I thought it was pretty good,” Avalanche head coach Jared Bednar said. “The start of the game we looked a little big sluggish with the pace of our play. Our urgency got better as the game went on. It was a real good game for us for being the first one back. Pretty happy to get that result.

“Hopefully we can go and keep this thing going down the stretch run and into the playoffs and we can achieve the ultimate goal, which is why we’re all here.”

Devan Dubnyk made 25 saves to get the road win

Jaden Schwartz scored both Blues goals.

“We cause our own problems,” Blues head coach Craig Berube said. “This is a good enough hockey team to get through this, but in saying that, there’s got to be a lot more composure within our veteran group here. We have a lot of veterans on this team that have won and have won a championship (in 2019), and we’ve got to have more composure in our game. That’s the bottom line. Things are going to happen out there that are out of your control, but we’re not controlling what we can control.”

Andre Burakovsky struck for two goals for Colorado.

“We played a real disciplined game today,” Burakovsky said. “That may be why we won the game. We’re doing all the right things. We have to come out and compete in every game.”

St Louis had a short lived 1-0 lead in the first period.

Brandon Saad scored 23 seconds after Schwartz put the Blues ahead.

“It felt good,” the Avs’ Tyson Jost said. “St. Louis got a power play there and the period was winding down and we had to respond. I knocked it down. We scored. It definitely felt good. You never know how it’s going to go when you’ve been off that long.”

Pierre-Edouard Bellemare added an empty-net goal to keep the Blues on the losing end of their third straight game.

Jordan Binnington made 25 saves in the loss.

“It wasn’t the result we wanted today,” Schwartz said. “Did some good things at times but weren’t able to get to our game as much as we would have liked. Got to regroup and look at some stuff and just worry about the next game. We’ve got to take advantage of some of these games coming up.”