ST. LOUIS — When Blues coach Craig Berube juggled his lines after his team’s rocky night in the Canadian Rockies on Monday, he turned to a combination that he hadn’t tried much. He returned Brayden Schenn to center for the first time since he returned from his second injury in early January, and matched him with Brandon Saad and David Perron.
It worked. Saad scored twice, matching his goal total from last season in Colorado, and had an assist Schenn had a goal and an assist and Perron body slammed a Flame as the Blues avenged Monday’s Mess with a 5-1 win over the Flames before a sellout crowd at Enterprise Center. The Blues have one more game, on Saturday at Enterprise against Winnipeg, before their extended All-Star break.
Ville Husso had a much easier night than Jordan Binnington did on Monday. Binnington faced 35 shots in periods and gave up seven goals before being pulled. Husso still faced some Calgary breakaways and the Flames had some good chances, but he won his sixth straight start and improved to 9-2-1 on the season. That’s two fewer wins than Binnington has in nine fewer games. Since the start of the team's trip, Husso has stopped 106 of 108 shots he's faced; he's allowed one goal or less in five of his past six starts.
At the same time, the game moved the last two games from team’s just-completed trip into the Anomaly and Aberration column as they got back to playing their preferred style of game, being aggressive on the forecheck and breaking up scoring chances as they dropped Calgary’s shots-on-goal total from 48 to 29 and dropping their goal total from seven to one. The Flames, playing their third game in four nights (just as the Blues were doing in Calgary) had 62 shots on goal on Wednesday against Columbus and had scored 13 goals in their previous two games.
In addition to the goals by Saad and Schenn, Jordan Kyrou got his team-high 17th of the season, showing extreme patience in front of the net and waiting for goalie Jacob Markstrom to go down before moving around him to score into an open net and make it 4-1 early in the third, and Ryan O'Reilly scored with 1:01 to play on a power play after Saad couldn't get his stick cleanly on a chance for a hat trick and the puck trickled to O'Reilly for the goal.
The Blues have won four of their past five and seven of their past nine. Since the Christmas break, the Blues are 9-3.
Just as they did on Monday in Calgary, the Blues got off to a 1-0 lead, this time on a goal by Saad. He took a pass in stride from Schenn entering the Flames zone and from the left circle drilled it past Markstrom, who was starting goal for the second straight day. It was Saad’s 14th goal, keeping him in the midst of the tightly packed battle for scoring honors with the Blues.
Calgary tied the game midway through the first. Ryan O’Reilly caused a turnover in the Blues zone, but Ivan Barbashev’s attempt to backhand the loose puck back to O’Reilly to clear the zone came up short and was grabbed by Andrew Mangiapane, who fed Mikael Backlund, who scored from a tight angle near the goal line.
Schenn put the Blues back in the lead with 6:01 to go in the first. Niko Mikkola passed him a bouncing puck and Schenn had to twice hit the puck in the air to get it under control. With Colton Parayko attracting attention on his right, Schenn skated in and shot from a little closer than Saad did to Markstrom’s short side.
The goal was the 10th of the season for Schenn, and he’s got half of them in the past five games. Since coming back from his second injury of the season, he has six goals and four assists.
Perron got tangled up with Calgary’s Dillon Dube later in the period, and the situation quickly escalated, with Perron being perturbed by Dube’s actions, Perron pulling off Dube’s helmet and, shortly after, when the two engaged, throwing Dube to the ground. Bot got roughing penalties
The Blues killed off two Calgary penalties in the second period, and on the first Justin Faulk was involved in two breakaways, including a two-on-one with Robert Thomas which ended with Thomas unable to get a pass back to Faulk. Toward the end of the first power play, Tyler Bozak had to play about 20 seconds without a stick, but Calgary’s pressure finally ended with Husso catching a shot by Oliver Kylington.
In between the two Calgary power plays, the Blues made it 3-1. Perron and Schenn were battling with two Calgary players behind the Flames net and the puck came out in front off a Calgary stick to Saad in front of the net for a one-timer for his 15th goal of the season.
On Kyrou's goal, Thomas had the puck behind the net, slammed on the brakes, reversed direction, and found Kyrou in front, where he skated the width of the crease before shooting.
Calgary's comeback efforts were derailed by two penalties in the final 5:16, though on one of them, Rasmus Andersson put a shot off the post after Calgary got possession in the Blues end and Torey Krug lost his stick and couldn't clear the puck.
