In Washington, DC, the visiting St Louis Blues broke out to a 4-0 lead after 40 minutes of play on Friday night, and cruised to a 5-2 win over the Capitals.
Joel Hofer made 32 saves in his first career NHL start for the Blues.
St Louis moved to 30-33-5, and snapped a two-game losing streak.
Sammy Blais, who hit for a double in the Blues win, opened the scoring in the first period for a 1-0 lead.
“He was strong in the offensive zone,” Blues coach Craig Berube said of Blais. “That’s his game. When he gets there, he’s hanging onto pucks, being around the net. He’s a heavy guy and he ended up with two goals tonight because he’s at the net.”
It stayed that way until the middle frame where the Blues hit for three goals.
“The other night against [Minnesota] it was one stretch of time in the second period where it kind of collapsed on us,” Berube said. “But overall, I think we’ve had the energy and the compete level that we’ve wanted, and our team’s bonding together. We’ve got some new faces, and I think it’s going in the right direction.”
Jordan Kyrou doubled the lead to 2-0 at 4:51.
Kasperi Kapanen pushed the lead to 3-0 for St Louis at the midway point of the second period.
“It was behind the middle post, so it went up and got stuck there,” Blais said. “I thought it hit the post and it went out, but I went behind the net and I saw it. That’s when I saw it was in.”
Blais then hit for his double to send the game to the third period with the Blues ahead, 4-0.
“From a defensive standpoint, we made really big mental mistakes on the goals and some of the big chances they had,” Capitals coach Peter Laviolette said. “They didn’t have a ton, but the ones that we gave up, they’re breakaways or partial breakaways or odd-man rushes, and things that can happen.”
Washington dropped to 33-30-7.
“We have no wiggle room right now,” Washington forward Conor Sheary said. “So, the fact that we weren’t able to come out and be ready for this one and try to move up the standings is unfortunate. So, at this point, we’ve got to get rolling and if we don’t, it’s going to end quickly for us.”
In the third period, the Caps rallied on two goals, with Martin Fehervary and Nicklas Backstrom cutting the Blues’ lead in half at 4-2.
“It’s obviously not the way we want to play,” Backstrom said. “Obviously sometimes you get a nice comeback like last game [5-4 in a shootout against the Buffalo Sabres], but it’s too hard. It’s too hard in this league to just chase every game. I mean, it’s not doable.”
St Louis sealed the win with an empty-net goal from Brayden Schenn at 18:21 for the 5-2 final.
Darcy Kuemper made 17 saves in the Caps loss.
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