In St Louis, the visiting Nashville Predators scored three in the first, and four in the second period to take a 7-2 lead over the Blues on Friday night.
Ryan O’Reilly was among the Predators strikers, as he returned to St Louis to face his old club.
“Obviously, it was such a special time here,” said O’Reilly, who received a video tribute at the first time out in the first period. “It was such a nice thing for the Blues to do. I got a painting, too, from them before the game as well. Such a great organization. Everything they’ve done for me.
“Coming here I think really changed my career around. I can’t thank the organization, the staff enough for being so great to me. It was a pretty great welcome back. It was definitely emotional. It was just an amazing time. An amazing tribute.”
The Preds have won four straight, and improved to 9-10-0.
“It’s nice to see guys get goals and feel good about themselves,” Nashville coach Andrew Brunette said. “When we do the right things and things we talk about, when you have the puck, you’ll have some fun. The game swayed our way early.”
Kevin Lankinen made 36 saves in the win.
Nashville took a 3-0 lead in the first on goals from Filip Forsberg, his first of the night, at 6:57; just 28 seconds later Yakov Trenin hit for a 2-0 advantage to the Preds.
Luke Evangelista scored his first of a double at 13:53 for a 3-0 lead to Nashville.3-0 at 13:53
“I think we just got to be mentally tougher,” St. Louis’ Justin Faulk said. “It’s going to happen. We can’t, if we get scored on first or second too, make us change our game. The game plan stays the same. It has to. We have to play out the whole 60 minutes. Leads change all the time. It is what it is. Stats probably say the team that scores first has the better chance, but it’s not every night and you’ve got to just buy in and go, play a hard game.”
St Louis dropped to 10-8-1.
“(Lack of) execution for sure,” St. Louis coach Craig Berube said. “I liked our start the first five, six minutes. They get a goal, (then) I think we kind of froze. They put it in there and then we jump in our ‘D,’ trying to poke a puck at the offensive line, give up an odd-man rush and they score again. I think we unraveled or whatever after that. But puck play and puck battles for me were not very good today.”
St Louis got one back at 16:32 to trim the deficit to 3-1 on a marker from Pavel Buchnevich.
In the middle frame, in just got ugly for the Blues with Spencer Stastney scoring his first NHL career goal to make it 4-1.
“One of my earliest games I saw was the [Blackhawks] playing the Blues here and I was thinking about that before the game,” Stastney said. “To score out here now is pretty cool.
“I had a tough gap. The puck just rolled around the boards. I joined. Evangelista made a great pass. I shot from the point. I don’t know if that’s going to go in on my stick all the time, but today it did. I feel fortunate.”
O’Reilly’s goal came at 4:06 off a two skater power play for a 5-1 lead to Nashville.
“Scoring the goal, yeah, that felt great,” O’Reilly said. “… It was an unbelievable play by Filip to hit me backdoor. When you score against your old team, it always feels good.”
Evangelista scored his double with six minutes gone in the middle frame for a 6-1 lad.
“It’s obviously a way better feeling,” Evangelista said. “Just showing up at the rink in times of the slump versus now, it’s night and day. We’re having a ton of fun. We’re looking to stay hot.”
Robert Thomas answered, somewhat, for the Blues midway through the period to make it 6-2.
Forsberg hit for his double at 17:29 to blunt any rally attempt to send the game to third period with a 7-2 lead to Nashville.
Jake Neighbours hit off the power play at 5:23 of the third to make the score 7-3.
The goal was notable for being the first power play marker of the season at home the Blues; they had been scoreless in 18 chances on home ice.
Kiefer Sherwood capped the scoring at 12:42 for the 8-3 final.
Joel Hofer got the start for the Blues and surrendered four goals to Nashville before getting the hook in the middle frame, he made 11 saves.
Jordan Binnington made 16 saves in a mop up role, yielding four goals.
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