Mike Yeo has his St Louis Blues humming in the early going of the NHL season. On Wednesday night, the Blues picked up points in their fifth straight game with a 5-2 win over the Calgary Flames in St Louis.
Alexander Steen, who had been without a point so far, potted a goal and added three assists to lead the offense.
“I think we simplified things a little bit more,” Steen said. “We were more direct in the way that we played, and I think we were a step quicker than we have been too. Those things contributed to us getting more goals and obviously more chances.
“It was good, even the ones we didn’t score. There was a lot of momentum pushing forward, so it was a good step in the right direction.”
Jake Allen made 23 saves to backstop the win.
“It was tough having [Steen] have that injury. I thought that he looked really good in training camp. I feel like he’s a step quicker this year. I think he did a heck of a job in the summer coming in really good shape and you could tell the training, the focus that he had in the summer, he was a motivated hockey player,” Yeo said of Steen’s game.
Paul Stastny, Jaden Schwartz, Alex Pietrangelo, and Joel Edmundson also scored for the Blues.
Mikael Backlundstruck twice for goals for the Flames.
Calgary’s special teams have been lacking of late and yielded two power play goals to the Blues Wednesday.
“If you keep losing the specialty games, you’re going to put yourself (in a bad spot),” Calgary head coach Glen Gulutzan said. “Two nights in a row, we’ve given up 2-for-3 on the power play.
“When you’re playing back-to-back (games), your penalty kill has to be better. Our penalty kill quite frankly doesn’t look anything near what it should and we’ve got to clean that area up because tonight it put us in a hole and we couldn’t get out of it.”
[WATCH: All Flames vs. Blues highlights]
Eddie Lack got his first start of the year and made 24 saves in the loss.
“I feel like it’s kind of circumstantial. I feel like I’ve definitely had some good games here and some games we had really good team games when I’ve been here with other teams, so it’s just one of those things. It’s too bad we couldn’t keep the streak going,” Lack said.