In St Louis, the Blues rebounded from an ugly loss to the Pittsburgh Penguins and handed the Washington Capitals a 5-1 loss on Friday night.
Pavel Buchnevichhit for a pair of goals, including a shorthanded strike in the third period for St Louis.
“It was a discussion before the season started out,” the Blues’ Torey Krug said. “That was one of our goals. Playing in a full building, this is a very tough place for opposing teams. I was on the other side for a number of years. We talked about it as an opposing team. I think we’ve re-established that and our fans being back in the building is a very big part of that.
“So at the beginning of the year that was a goal of ours, to come in here and make it a hard place to play, and we’ve accomplished that so far.”
St. Louis improved to 20-10-5.
Ville Husso made 26 saves in the Blues win.
“When I came to the rink, I just focused on the start and the first period,” Husso said. “It was nice to get some saves right away. After that one save, I felt like I was into the game. Sometimes it’s hard to come when you’re a month away and you don’t play for a month. Today I was lucky to make those saves and then guys scored a couple goals. It was a good hockey game for us, and a big win.”
Daniel Sprong was the lone striker for the Caps, his goal gave Washington a 1-0 lead.
“Nobody likes losing a hockey game,” Capitals chead oach Peter Laviolette said. “It’s frustrating tonight. It was kind of a game that didn’t have a lot of shots, a lot of chances. The ones they got, they had some quality to them. The ones we had in the first period had quality to them, but they just didn’t go. There are things we can do better defensively to tighten that up.”
Washington dropped to 20-7-8.
“We had some good chances in the first 10 [minutes] and then they capitalized on our mistakes,” Sprong said. “We had some good looks. They just didn’t go in. At the end of the day, we didn’t get a good result. We’ve got to put this behind us and get ready for tomorrow night [at the Minnesota Wild].”
Tory Krug tied the game, 1-1, for St Louis.
“I think Krug’s goal really got us settled in, to be honest with you,” Blues head coach Craig Berube said. “Then we started to just do what we needed to do against them.”
After Krug tied it, Buchnevich,Oskar Sundqvist, and Ivan Barbashev gave the Blues a 4-1 lead.
Buchnevich’s shorthanded goal was an empty-net strike for the 5-1 final.
Ilya Samsonov got the start for Washington, and surrendered four goals, making 12 saves before getting the hook in the second intermission.
“You know, the game just hadn’t gone the way we wanted,” Laviolette said. “At that point, we’re looking to make a change and get Fucale back in the net and give him some time.”
Zach Fucale made seven saves in the third period.
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