In Washington, DC Monday night, Alex Ovechkin scored a power-play goal, his 33rd of the season, to stake the Capitals to a 1-0 lead.
That was all the Caps got as the St Louis Blues rallied from that early deficit for a 4-1 win.
David Perron extended his point streak in win over Caps – file photo courtesy of Lewis Bleiman
“I think our mentality’s changed. We’re a north team now. We control the puck in the offensive zone a lot. We shoot the puck and get to the net. That’s our game. And when we don’t have it, we do a good job defending and keep teams on the outside as much as possible and limit shots,” Blues head coach Craig Berube said after the win.
Jake Allen closed the door and made 28 saves to get the win.
“We’ve said all year long we’ve needed to string some wins together, especially with the start that we’ve had,” Allen said. “We’re still in the thick of things, really. We’re not that far out of it, we’ve still got a couple games in hand and hopefully we can continue and cap off this road trip on the right note.”
The Blues moved to 20-20-4 and have won five of their last seven games.
“I don’t know, we just didn’t seem as desperate as they did for some reason,” the Caps’ Bruce Orpik said. “Kind of seemed like we were second to the puck on a lot of loose pucks. A couple weird bounces there on two of the goals, but they were playing in our zone for the most part there in the second period.”
David Perron, Ivan Barbashev, Vince Dunn, and Vladimir Tarasenko scored for the Blues.
Allen, who has struggled for the Blues this season, was sharp after the early goal.
“He was really sharp for us tonight and it was great to see for sure. He kept us in the game,” Perron said. “Early even, that bomb from Ovechkin, I don’t think many goalies would have stopped that.”
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Pheonix Copley made 33 saves
“We all know in here that we have to be better, especially 5-on-5. Over the course of 82 games you’re going to have your ups and downs, and hopefully this is our down,” the Caps’ Nicklas Backstrom said after the game.
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