In St Louis, Joel Hofer made 33 saves to help the Blues to a 3-0 win over the visiting Winnipeg Jets on Sunday.
Thomas Greiss iced for one save in the second period for the Blues, after Hofer left the ice for 2:36 in the middle frame for a skate issue.
“No, it’s all right,” Hofer said regarding sharing the shutout. “I don’t really care about that. I’m just obviously happy to be here and to get the win in front of the home crowd. It was great.
Hofer defeated the Washington Capitals, 5-3, on Friday night.
“There’s obviously a little more motivation [being from Winnipeg], but I thought the team played really well in front of me,” Hofer said. “Obviously, limited them to a lot of outside chances and it was nice to get the win, especially against those guys.”
St Louis improved to 31-33-5.
“I thought the whole team, though, we did a great job of protecting our slot area and high-danger shots,” St. Louis coach Craig Berube said. “[Hofer] was good. Again, solid around the net. No rebounds and things like that, so it’s good.”
Kasperi Kapanen scored St Louis in the opening stanza for a 1-0 lead.
“I’ve been happy with him, with his game,” Berube said of Kapanen. “He had some good looks in the first period, too. He’s been pretty solid all around. Defensively, I said his awareness is good and he plays good ‘D.’ Offensively, I think he’s gaining more confidence as it goes along, to be honest with you.”
The Jets are just unable to get out of their own way coming down the stretch this season.
“We came out of the gate great,” Winnipeg coach Rick Bowness said. “Had the forecheck going, we hit the crossbar on a tip, we were jamming the net, we were doing all of the things we had talked about, and then they go down and score. We didn’t handle it very well from that point.
“We did have some opportunities; we didn’t capitalize on them. They’re a big defense, all those guys are big and strong, and we had a tough time battling through them.”
Winnipeg dropped to 39-29-3.
Nathan Walker scored his scored of the season to give the Blues a 2-0 lead in the second period.
“(Justin) Faulk made a great play,” Walker said. “I knew he was probably going to throw it backdoor, so I just tried to go there and just get a stick on it.”
Jacob Vrana scored 12 minutes into the the third period for the 3-0 final.
Connor Hellebuyck made 14 saves in the Jets loss.
“Whenever you get a power play, you want to at least create some momentum, and we weren’t able to do that,” Jets forward Nikolaj Ehlers said. “We did have some chances today, but it’s the second time in three games that we haven’t scored (3-0 loss to the Boston Bruins on Thursday). We need to get more shots, better shots to the net, and we’ve got to clean up those rebounds.”
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