In St Louis Thursday, the New Jersey Devils’ struggles continued in a 5-2 loss to the Blues; it was their fourth straight loss.
For the Blues, Vladimir Tarasenko continued his streak of points with a goal and two assists.
“It was really important for us to get a win today because we knew New Jersey has a good team, especially after the last couple of tough losses for us on the road,” Tarasenko said. “We did a pretty good job tonight. We have tough opponents coming now and we need to win these games and we always try to prepare for them. It’s always nice to have two points at home.”
He has 37 points this season on 15 goals.
St Louis improved to 17-10-4.
Jori Lehtera, Alex Pietrangelo, Nail Yakupov and Patrik Berglund added goals for the Blues’ win.
But St Louis had to tally from a 2-0 deficit in the first period to claim the victory.
“I thought the first period they were fresh and their pace was high,” Blues coach Ken Hitchcock said of the Devils. “Their puck movement was ahead of our pressure so we were going in and they were moving it by us. In the second period, which was our best period, we played for a long time, we caught up to them and hemmed them in quite a bit. Our pressure game ended up giving us all the scoring opportunities.”
Cory Schneider made 26 saves in the loss. The four-game skid has been ugly for the Devils who have outscored 19-5.
WATCH: All Devils vs. Blues highlights
“It’s a big concern,” Schneider said. “We’re here to win games and make the playoffs and be relevant here in the standings, and when you go on losing streaks it’s hard to recover.
“It’s really hard to play catch-up later in the year with three-point games playing against your division all the time. It’s really difficult to make up ground so we have to find a way to put the brakes on the skid and go on a streak of our own because it’s tough to lose three, four, five in a row and survive after that.”
Jake Allen picked up the win for the Blues on 24 saves and is 11-0-2 at home this season.
Adam Henrique (shorthanded) and Miles Wood scored for the Devils.
“We didn’t do enough to win,” Devils coach John Hynes said.
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