Blues get past Jets, 3-2

In Winnipeg, the St Louis Blues scored the only goal in the skills competition with the Jets, on Tuesday night.

That was enough, as Ryan O’Reilly’s goal gave the Blues a 3-2 win over Winnipeg.

Jordan Binnington made 39 saves to get the Blues win.

“[Binnington] came up big for us. He won us a game tonight,” St. Louis head coach Craig Berube said. “For me tonight, he made effort saves. … He outcompeted the shooter on a lot of plays, just battling. He was excellent.”

Kyle Connor and Neal Pionk were the Jets strikers.

Winnipeg dropped to 6-3-3.

“You build off of that game,” the Jets’ Blake Wheeler said. “That was a pretty good hockey game by our team. We had a lot of golden opportunities that we normally cash in on that we’re having a tough time on right now. But outside of that, there’s really not a whole lot you can do in an NHL game. Their goalie played good, our goalie played good. Two really good teams and we build off that one. There’s nothing to hang your head about after a game like that.”

Jordan Kyrou and Pavel Buchnevich scored for St Louis in regulation time.

“There was a couple times where [Binnington] was on his stomach or he was on his back and he just flung his arm up there, got a stick on it, or something,” Kyrou said. “He made unbelievable saves, and same thing in the shootout, [he] stopped all four of them.”

St Louis improved to 8-2-1.

“I think our team is pretty resilient,” Berube said. “They believe in themselves, they believe in the team. You’re not going to have games where it’s perfect and it’s going your way. You’re going to have games where there’s times that you’re outplayed and the other team is better, but you still can hang in there and find ways to win. And that’s what we did tonight.”

Connor Hellebuyck made 31 saves in the Jets loss.

“A few mistakes on my end tonight,” Hellebuyck said. “I feel I’ve gotten certain details into my game and certain bad habits out of my game, and tonight I might have crept a few of those back in. That’s just a matter of getting my mind into game speed, so tonight was a huge stepping stone for me and I’ll only improve from here.”