In St Louis, the Blues scored four unanswered goals in the middle frame on Thursday night to turn a 2-1 deficit to the Edmonton Oilers into a 5-2 lead headed to the third.
The two teams traded goals in the third for a 6-3 win to the Blues.
Jordan Binnington made 35 saves in the win.
“I don’t know (what changed), maybe we found our legs,” Binnington said. “We started playing predictable, we were more disciplined. We stayed out of the box. We played a good, overall game. It’s nice to be back home and feeling good.”
The Blues improved to 29-22-2.
In the opening stanza, St Louis grabbed a 1-0 lead on a marker from Robert Thomas midway through the period.
“We’re coming along,” Thomas said. “I think we’re trending in the right direction. We’re coming together as a team and playing the right way. If you look at the last four games, everyone’s chipping in, different lines stepping up, carrying the weight every night. That’s what you need coming down the stretch and playing these big games, you need everyone involved and it’s nice to see it coming together.”
Edmonton replied with a pair of strikes, the first coming from Leon Draisaitl at 13:51, off the power play, for a 1-1 tie.
The Oilers claimed the lead when Ryan Nugent-Hopkins scored at 19:33 for a 2-1 advantage.
Edmonton dropped to 31-18-1.
“I think he brings a lot of intangibles to our dressing room, our bench and then on the ice as well,” Edmonton’s Derek Ryan said of Perry. “He’s a leader and he’s a sparkplug. He can get us going when we’re not having our best night and I thought he did a good job doing that.”
In the middle frame, the Blues got their offense on track.
Jake Neighbours scored with 69 seconds gone in the second for a 2-2 tie.
“Started tilting the ice in our favor, started putting the pucks to the goal line and playing in the offensive zone and getting to the net, kind of doing all the little things,” Neighbours said. “Power play was good, converted twice and I thought our 5-on-5 game was really strong.”
Tory Krug hit at 8:37 for a 3-2 lead to the Blues.
“That’s all him,” Neighbours said of Krug. “He screamed at me, so I just threw it. Screamed at me, it’s good talk and [I] just tried throwing it somewhere, and he buried it.”
Jordan Kyrou then hit off a power play at 15:32 for a 4-2 advantage.
Pavel Buchnevich finished off the second period scoring with a power play marker with 25 seconds left in the period for a 5-2 lead headed to the third.
The Oilers got one back when Corey Perry collected his first goal with the Oilers at 11:14 to trim the score to 5-3.
“I thought we moved it,” Edmonton coach Kris Knoblauch said of the first period. “Made some really good plays with the puck, not just giving it away, we were composed. I think there was maybe a couple of shifts that weren’t up to our standards and one that we got scored against, but other than that, I liked how we were just keeping our game simple, getting in on the forecheck and then spending some time in the offensive zone, because that’s where we were playing our best.”
St Louis sealed the 6-3 win with an empty-net strike by Brandon Saad at 17:07.
Stuart Skinner made 24 saves in the loss.
“I think a lot of self-inflicted errors and things we can clean up,” Edmonton forward Zach Hyman said.
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