Kings make it six straight

In St Louis, the surging Los Angeles Kings won their sixth straight game and defeated the Blues, 2-1, on Wednesday night.

Calvin Petersen made 35 saves to get the win.

“I think guys are playing like we expect to play,” Petersen said. “We’re all doing our jobs. We’re not getting too far ahead of ourselves. We’re taking it game by game. I think it’s paying off for us. Guys are seizing the opportunities given to them. The older guys keep setting the tone. We’re hoping to build off it.”

Oskar Sundqvist scored the Blues’ only goal.

“I’m sure it wears on them, it wears on everybody,” Blues head coach Craig Berube said. “You tend to start squeezing your stick. You end up trying to do too much, which isn’t a good thing. It takes away the skill players’ composure and relaxation out there when they’re playing. It does, it wears on guys.

“We did a lot of good things tonight. Obviously we’re having trouble scoring goals, but it’s not like we’re not creating opportunities and chances. We are. I thought our team worked hard tonight.”

St Louis has seven regulars out of the lineup with injuries, they dropped to 10-8-2 with the loss.

Despite the roster issues, the Blues outshot the Kings, 38-20.

“I don’t think we had a real good game from the get-go tonight, to tell you the truth,” Kings head coach Todd McLellan said. “We were slow with the puck, a number of shots missed the net, there were deflected or tipped or fumbled (pucks). We just weren’t good with the puck. I didn’t think we were near as sharp with the puck as we were two nights ago. Some of that has to do with how St. Louis played. They played better tonight than they did the other night.”

Alex Iafallo and Andreas Athanasiou were the LA strikers.

Jordan Binnington made 18 saves in the loss.

“Look, it’s frustrating, we’re not getting rewarded for some of the work that we’re doing, but we can do a little bit more and get some puck luck,” the Blues’ Torey Krug said. “We’ve got to earn it right now. We’ve just got to get a little greasier around the nets and make it harder for their defensemen and their goalies and we’ll get rewarded for it.”