Blues rout Bruins, 5-1 Hofer makes 34 saves

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In Boston, the visiting St-Louis Blues took a 4-0 lead into the third period over the Bruins en route to a 5-1 win on Monday night.

Joel Hofer made 34 saves in the win.

“Obviously, we’d like to get a couple more wins in the road trip, but this is a big win for our club,” Hofer said. “It’s obviously a good team over there, so hopefully we can keep this going [at] home.”

St. Louis moved to 33-29-3, snapping a three-game skid.

“We were working in the right direction to accomplish what we had to do here tonight,” Blues coach Drew Bannister said. “A lot from goaltending out to our forwards, we didn’t have any passengers. Everybody played well here tonight. [Hofer] had to make some big saves for us. He played outstanding. Our penalty kill was outstanding here tonight, and our power play was able to score. So, all assets of the game, guys were contributing.”

The Blues took a 2-0 lead in the opening stanza.

Kasperi Kapanen  staked the Blue to a 1-0 lead midway through the first period, scoring off a shot from the low slot.

“It was just going in today,” Kapanen said. “Just happy to see. I feel like it hasn’t really been bouncing, necessarily, the way I wanted this year, so just having a game like this, it really feels good.”

Robert Thomas pushed the St Louis lead to 2-0 with a strike at 17:59, scoring off a two skater power play/

The Bruins dropped to 38-14-15.

“I didn’t like our start,” Bruins coach Jim Montgomery said. “I didn’t think we had the intensity that’s required in this league to start games on time. … We created a lot of good scoring chances. We missed the net, they blocked shots. Their desperation probably was, defensively, a little bit higher than ours.”

In the middle frame, the Blues added two goals to their lead.

Kevin Hayes stretched the lead to 3-0 at 4:31 of the second, scoring off an odd man rush.

Brandon Saad ballooned the lead to 4-0 at 15:25, scoring off a deflection down low.

In the third period, David Pastrnak scored at 1:48 to trim to he deficit to 4-1.

“I think it was [a] slow start. I don’t think we were engaged there,” Bruins forward Pavel Zacha said. “I think we started playing good in the second half, which in the NHL is not good enough against any team, so that’s something that we have to get better at.”

St Louis sealed the win with a strike into an empty net by Alexey Toropchenko at 11:27 for the 5-1 final count on the scoreboard.

Jeremy Swayman made 18 saves in the loss.