ST. LOUIS — In the history of the NHL, there had never been a team win five straight games on the heels of a losing streak of eight games or more.
Until Thursday, that is. Wearing their yellow “reverse retro” jerseys, there was no reversing of the Blues’ winning streak. They defeated the Washington Capitals 5-4 in a shootout at Enterprise Center – and just like that – they have reached the .500 mark at 8-8-0 with their fifth consecutive victory.
The Moms’ trip, of course, is over. But most of the mothers returned from Chicago to St. Louis to watch their sons play Thursday, sitting in random seats – and not a box or suite. Most are staying for the remainder of the home stand, which includes successive home games against Anaheim on Saturday and Monday.
Making his fourth start of the year, backup goalie Thomas Greiss got his first victory as a member of the Blues. And with Colton Parayko out of the lineup again with an upper-body injury, rookie Tyler Tucker played in his second NHL game.
After taking what seemed like a commanding 3-0 lead in the first period, the Blues almost frittered away that advantage. The Capitals came at them hard for most of the final two periods. The last pressure point came with 5:38 left why the rarely-penalized Ryan O’Reilly was whistled for his second minor of the game – a tripping penalty.
Working the puck around masterfully, John Carlson was left open in the left circle and whistled one past Greiss to make it a 4-3 game with 4:03 left. And just 1:12 later Conor Sheary tied it with 3:03 left.
With 2:23 left, the puck ended up in the net again on a deflection by Nic Dowd. But the play was reviewed for a high stick by Dowd and disallowed.
So it went to overtime and then a shootout with Pavel Buchnevich scoring the game winner in the sixth round.
For openers
Granted, the Blues haven’t scored a lot of goals, period, this season – until lately, anyway. But that’s been especially true in the opening period. St. Louis entered the game with only 11 first-period goals in 15 games, tied for the eighth-lowest total in the league.
So Thursday’s three-goal outburst against the Washington Capitals was unexpected to say the least. It marked only the fourth time all season the Blues have scored as many as three goals in one period. They’ve done so once before in the first period – way back in Game 2, in what became a 4-3 overtime win on Oct. 19 in Seattle.
On Thursday, Brayden Schenn, Pavel Buchnevich and Torey Krug (on the power play) all scored in a span of 6:53. All this came against Charlie Lindgren – aka “Chucky Sideburns” – who went 5-0-0 last season to help keep the Blues afloat before the New Year, when COVID, injury and cap issues stretched their goalie situation to its thinnest.
Lindgren failed to hug the post on Schenn’s goal – his fourth goal of the season. On the Buchnevich goal, Vladimir Tarasenko sent the puck in off the back boards towards Buchnevich, who swooped around the net and beat Lindgren with a wraparound move.
For Buchnevich, it was his first goal since opening day.
And with 8:11 left in the period, Krug sent a shot from just inside the blue line past Lindgren, with Jordan Kyrou providing traffic in front; it looked like Krug’s shot might have deflected off a Washington player. Prior to the Krug goal, the Blues had been only 3-for-22 on the power play over the last eight games.
Greiss is nice
The Blues sleepwalked their way through most of the second period. At one point, the Capitals had outshot the Blues 14-3 in the period. But Greiss kept the Capitals off the board with several strong saves, including a glove save of Carlson with 16:29 left in the period, and then a stop of Aliaksei Protas in front at 12:00.
Just 21 seconds after the save on Protas, Greiss stopped Anthony Mantha on a 2-on-1 break.
But Greiss could only do so much. Washington finally broke through when Alex Ovechkin was left wide open in the near slot – how does that happen? It’s Ovechkin. Anyway, Ovechkin’s 789th career NHL goal made it a 3-1 game.
The goal didn’t serve as a wakeup call for the Blues to get moving. Instead, it became a 3-2 game when Carlson scored a shorthanded goal – the second allowed by the Blues in four games – just 2 ½ minutes after the Ovechkin score.
Suddenly the Blues had a game on their hands. But along came O’Reilly to the rescue. He scored a sneaky goal, with Leivo sending a pass to the net front from right win. With Trevor van Riemsdyk sliding over to defend him, O’Reilly – with his back to the net – lifted a quick backhander over van Riemsdyk and past Lindgren near-side to make it 4-2 with 1:58 left in the second.
It was O’Reilly’s fifth goal of the season and his fourth in six games. For Leivo, it was his fourth assist in five games since being called up from Springfield on Nov. 9.
