In Ottawa, the St Louis Blues kept their hopes alive for a playoff spot this season.
On Thursday night, they downed the Senators, 5-2.
The Blues are two points back of the Vegas Golden Knights for the second wild card spot in the Western Conference. The Knights hold two games in hand, though.
“I was really happy with Jordan’s game,” St. Louis coach Drew Bannister said. “I mean, that’s the way he has to play if we’re going to move forward. Like, we need him at his best, and I thought tonight he was real good again, so that’s a positive thing because I know he’s been struggling a little bit with his confidence in his game. It was nice to see that he was back to his old self here tonight.”
Jake Neighbours hit for a double in the win.
Joel Hofer made 37 saves in the win.
The Blues improved to 37-30-3 off their fifth win in six matches.
“It was a pretty special performance by [Hofer],” St Louis’ Brandon Saad said. “I mean, not our best job, but it was good to find a way to get it done, and Hofer was obviously unbelievable tonight.
“You could see he was feeling it. It’s nice that we got a couple and chipped in there, but he made some huge saves. We could have been down by a few goals after the first, so anytime a goalie is playing like that it gives you confidence.”
The Blues jumped out to a 2-0 lead.
Saad picked up his first of two on the night at 11:54 of the opening stanza, scoring from the slot.
The Blue pushed the lead to 2-0 when Colton Parayko scored at 14:57, scoring from the edge of the creas.
Mark Kastelic trimmed the deficit for the Sens to 2-1 when he struck at 4:34 of the middle frame, hitting off an odd man rush.
“It’s never easy going down two to start the game,” Kastelic said. “I think once you get in that position, you’re always just feeling like you’re clawing yourself back into it and that’s never an easy task to overcome.”
The Senators dropped to 28-36-4 off their third straight loss.
“I think [Hofer] was the difference in the hockey game,” Senators coach Jacques Martin said. “There’s no doubt when you look at the number of chances we had. I think it was 22-12 in our favor.”
Jake Neighbours restored the two-goal lead for St Louis when he connected at 13:11 scoring down low off a rebound..
Dominik Kubalik trimmed the deficit back to one, at 3-2, with a marker at 1:58 of the third period, scoring off the power play. on the power play,
“It is what it is. It’s hockey,” Kubalik said. “Sometimes you have five shots and you score four, and sometimes you have 30 [shots] and you can’t really get it in. So, we had some posts, some rebounds, [their] goalie made some good saves. … I thought that we were going to score a lot more, but obviously we didn’t.”
Kyrou scored at 5:43of the third for a 3-2 lead to the Blues.
“I felt like I was trying to play quicker without the puck and be more aggressive on the forecheck and just get on guys and stuff,” Kyrou said. “I feel like when I do that, the rest of my game kind of comes along.”
Neighbours then added his second of the night with an empty-net strike at 18:32 for the 5-2 final count on the scoreboard. .
Anton Forsberg made 23 saves in the loss.
“We had some momentum [in the third period], but the fourth goal hurt us,” Martin said. “But in the meantime, it shouldn’t have been 2-0 for them. We had plenty of chances in the first two periods; we should’ve been ahead.”
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