In Anaheim Joel Hofer made 30 saves to help the St Louis Blues to a 3-1 win over the Ducks on Sunday night.
Jake Neighbours staked the Blues to a 1-0 lead midway through the first period, after a turnover.
“I knew [Sundqvist] had a guy fronting him and if I could get myself available, he was going to make a play,” Neighbours said. “So I tried to slide to the backside there and ‘Sunny’s’ a passer, so I knew he’d slide it over.”
St Louis improved to 9-7-1.
Pavel Buchnevich hit ff the power play at 16:34 to push the Blues lead to 2-0 after the first 20 minutes.
The Ducks dropped to 9-9-0 off their third straight loss.
“I didn’t see a lot of energy. That surprised me,” Anaheim coach Greg Cronin said. “I thought they’d be flying and there wasn’t a lot of energy.”
St Louis extended the advantage to 3-0 at 5:39 of the middle frame on a strike by Alexey Toropchenko .
“I just was staying in front screening the goalie, and was trying to find a place,” Toropchenko. “[Hayes] or someone shoots, I don’t remember who, and the puck just bounced off of someone and I turned and just bang it to the net.”
The Ducks broke through at 8:47 of the second with a goal to make it 3-1.
“We’ve just got to find ways to get pucks to the net,” the Ducks Alex Killorn said. “You look at one of their goals, where it’s just kind of a rebound that hits off of a guy’s skate. There’s three guys down at the net. We’ve got to win those battles in front of the net like that.”
John Gibson made 28 saves in the loss.
“I think the penalties, the four-minute and the two-minute right after that, probably wasn’t a good situation for us,” Cronin said. “We weren’t getting into a rhythm.”
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