In St Louis, the Rangers gave up 20 shots to the Blues on Thursday night, one on an empty net.
Igor Shesterkin surrendered four goals on 19 shots and the Rangers lost, 5-2.
At some point, someone somewhere in the organization needs to make a difficult but clear decision.
Shesterkin is not the Vezina goalie we are told he is.
Jordan Kyrou hit for a hat trick in the Blues win.
“It feels great,” Kyrou said. “I’ve said this before, I love playing here. I love the fans. It feels awesome to get one at home.”
St Louis improved to 21-18-1, and were made to look like world beater by the Rangers.
“If I’m being honest, it’s a game I didn’t like our team at all 5-on-5 for the majority of the game,” St. Louis coach Drew Bannister said. “But you look at the Colorado game (2-1 loss Dec. 29), we probably deserved two points in that game and then tonight, if it wasn’t for the performance of ‘Binner’ and our power play being able to score the two goals, I don’t know if we get out of here with two points.
“Obviously happy with the two points. It’s an important two points. It’s a good hockey team over there, but I thought we made it easy on them here tonight. We can’t continue to do that. That’s not winning hockey and we’re not going to win many games like that playing that way.”
Jordan Binnington made 41 saves in the win.
“It was a clean game, fun,” Binnington said. “You know you’re going against a good offensive team over there. It was a fun working night.”
Adam Fox put the Rangers up, 1-0, at 1:51 of the first period off a shot from the left side of the crease.
“It’s frustrating to lose, of course,” Fox said. “We want to get back on track. We played a pretty good game. They capitalized on some power plays. We were chasing. We got shots and chances and we couldn’t capitalize. We were playing well 5-on-5, and penalties take a little steam out of you for sure.
“You put up 40-plus shots in three straight games, you want a little better result to show for it. You would hope to get a few more goals. It’s still a loss, and we’re not happy with it.”
The Blues replied with Kyrou’s first two of the night to take a 2-1 lead into the middle frame.
His first came at 4:02 for a 1-1 tie off a shot from above the right circle.
Kyrou collected his double off a power play strike at 7:30 for the 2-1 lead.
The Blues continued to embarrass the Rangers special teams with another power play goal from Brandon Saad at 9:26 of the middle frame.
Mika Zibanejad was a late scratch for illness.
“It’s going around from team to team,” New York coach Peter Laviolette said. “Morning skate he was good; it just took a turn for the worse right at game time. He was up for warmups. He’ll get some rest and he’ll be back [Saturday].”
The Rangers dropped to 26-12-2.
Kyrou picked up his hat trick goal at 7:01 of the third period on off a breakaway.
Vincent Trocheck added a so what goal for New York at 10:38 of the third off a power play.
“We had tons of chances,” Trocheck said.
At some point, those chances need to be cashed in.
The Blues added an empty-net marker from Pavel Buchnevich for the 5-2 final count on the scoreboard.
Shesterkin needs to be replaced as the team’s number one goalie. He has become unreliable. His defense is suspect but teams need to know their goalie will bail them out in breakdowns.
He is not doing that.
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