In St Louis, the Blues grabbed a 2-0 lead in the opening frame, and defied the cliche of falling asleep at the wheel on Saturday, as they defeated the Chicago Blackhawks, 5-1.
David Perron scored off the power play, and Dakota Joshua added a marker in the opening frame for the 2-0 lead.
Ville Husso made 15 saves for the Blues win.
St. Louis improved to 27-14-5.
“I felt pretty good coming in here,” Blackhawks head coach Derek King said. “I thought if we put a solid effort in, we compete with these guys and at least give ourselves an honest chance.
“That’s a good hockey team, we know that. We knew it was going to be a challenge, but that’s not good enough. I’ve got to watch my words here, but we just can’t do that. You can’t put an effort like that out and maybe steal a game from somebody. That’s not going to happen.”
Oskar Sundqvist also scored for the Blues, his goal came 13 seconds into a two-man advantage for the Blues.
“I think we did a really good job, especially the F1 and F2 [forwards] coming in and getting a stop to the play, getting in quick and getting the puck back,” Sundqvist said. “The forecheck was really good today and it’s a key for our game to be successful. Our forecheck game is very important. When it works, then we’re really dangerous.”
Dylan Strome scored the only goal for Chicago, it cut the Blues lead to 2-1.
“I thought we had some good shifts in the second, and we obviously got the goal [to make it 2-1],” Strome said. “We were playing decent and they get that one. It’s tough to go into the third down two. It would have been nice to be down one. Either way, it wasn’t a good enough effort in the third period to be close in that game.”
Chicago dropped to 17-24-7.
“It was a tight game, both teams played well,” Vladimir Tarasenko said. “‘Buchy’ [Pavel Buchnevich] made a great forecheck, Robert makes a great pass. Goals before intermission are always important. I’m happy to have that one, and I think it gave us confidence before the third period.”
Tarasenko gave St Louis a 3-1 lead with his goal in the game.
The Blues’ Jordan Kyrou closed out the scoring in the 16th minute of the third period for the 5-1 final.
“We talked before game,” Tarasenko said. “The same as New Jersey, a very good rush team. We just have to eliminate the turnovers, work hard, break up the plays. If we defend well, we create offensive chances from it. We did a pretty good job of it tonight.”
Marc-Andre Fleury made 26 save in the Hawks loss.
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