In St Louis, Andrei Vasilevskiy made 23 saves and the Tampa Bay Lightning downed the Blues, 4-2, on Saturday.
“Really good way to start [a five-game] road trip. We played a pretty good game,” Tampa Bay defenseman Victor Hedman said. “We didn’t give up a whole lot in the third period, we spent a lot of time in their end. At the end of the day, we didn’t give up a whole lot. We played our game.”
The Lightning improved to 27-13-1.
Brayden Point hit for a double and three points in the win.
“I liked how we played tonight. We need to build on that,” Point said. “I thought our third period was good. I liked how we skated. I thought the effort was there.”
The Blues dropped to 21-20-3, after their second straight loss.
Tyler Pitlick and Pavel Buchnevich scored for St Louis.
St Louis is 8-10-2 at home.
“Our home record’s not been good, it hasn’t been good all season,” Blues forward Robert Thomas said. “We still got some games at home here before we head on the road trip [Jan. 26] to bring it back. So we need to be more urgent and win at home.”
Pitlick scored in the first to give the Blues a 1-0 lead off a breakaway.
“Came out pretty good and got the quick goal, obviously, and thought it was going pretty good,” Pitlick said. “But that’s a good team over there, too, and we just need to keep going and keep building off that. … I don’t know what happened.”
Point scored his pair to give the Lightning a 2-1 lead in the first.
“Guys dug in, the forwards were responsible,” Tampa Bay coach Jon Cooper said. “When you’re playing in the offensive zone like we were, it’s not as taxing. We didn’t have to defend as much.”
Nick Perbix pushed the advantage to 3-1 in the second.
In the third, Buchnevich scored for the Blues to make it 3-2, and Alex Killorn added a marker for the 4-2 final.
Perbix did not ice for the third period, he sustained an apparent upper body injury.
“We’ll see,” Cooper said regarding the timeline. “He got hit pretty good there. I don’t foresee this being a long-term thing. We kept him off for precaution.”
Jordan Binnington made 26 saves in the Blues loss.
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