ST. LOUIS — You can take Vladimir Tarasenko away from the Russians, but you can’t take the Russians away from the scoresheet.
Tarasenko, the Blues’ leading scorer so far this season, missed Friday’s showdown with the Washington Capitals on the COVID-19 list.
In his absence the Blues got goals from Pavel Buchnevich and Ivan Barbashev among others to defeat the Beasts of the East, 5-1, Friday before another sellout crowd of 18,096 at Enterprise Center. On Wednesday, against another marquee team from the Eastern Conference, the Blues let a 3-1 lead slip away in a frustrating 5-3 loss.
No such thing occurred Friday as the Blues improved to 20-10-5 to begin a five-game homestand. They are now 10-0-1 in their last 11 games at Enterprise. They haven’t lost in regulation at home since a 3-2 setback to Arizona way back on Nov. 16
Washington, meanwhile, fell to 20-7-8, in its first game in St. Louis since the Blues raised their Stanley Cup championship banner on Oct. 2, 2019 to open the ’19-20 season.
On this night, Buchnevich had two goals and Barbashev one. (Oskar Sundqvist and Torey Krug also scored.) And with Ville Husso back in goal for the first time since suffering a lower-body injury Dec. 7, the Blues righted the ship after stubbing their skates in Pittsburgh. Husso stopped 26 saves in improving to 4-2-1 on the season.
In recent games, the red-hot Tarasenko had been taken off the potent Russian Line and been paired with Jordan Kyrou and Robert Thomas. Without Tarsasenko, coach Craig Berube put Brayden Schenn with Thomas and Kyrou.
Ryan O’Reilly centered Barbashev and Buchnevich on Friday. Call them the O’Russians. O’Reilly, by the way, chipped in with two assists.
Despite the shakiest of starts, the Blues managed to exit the first period tied at 1-all.
Even with the return of assistant coach Mike Van Ryn to the bench from the COVID-19 list — he runs the Blues’ defense — Washington had all kinds of time and space early. And all kinds of prime scoring opportunities.
In a carryover from Wednesday, the Blues weren’t strong on the puck along the boards or behind the net. In other words, Washington came away with the puck more often than not in those situations early.
It was in just such a sequence that culminated with Washington forward Daniel Sprong beating Husso high and glove side from the right circle just 122 seconds into the game.
Only some scrambling work by Husso and the rest of the defense kept the game from getting out of hand early. In his first action in a month, Husso made a hard-to-believe skate save, stopping Brett Leason, who had about three-fourths of an open net to shoot at backdoor. This came not long before Sprong’s goal.
The shots were 10-3 Washington at one point, but the Blues regrouped and got the final seven shots on goal of the period including a game-tying score from Krug with 7:50 left in the first. After putting on a skating exhibition on the right side to create some open ice, Thomas sent a beauty of a cross-rink pass to Krug, who was skating in on the left circle.
Krug took his time and lifted a high shot past Capitals’ goalie Ilya Samsonov, who was facing the Blues for the first time in his young career. It was the sixth goal of the season for Krug — who had two all of last season — and extended his point streak to four games (two goals, three assists).
Similar to the first period, Washington dominated the early going in the second peeriod, getting the first five shots on goal. The Capitals opened the period with 1:32 worth of power play due to a Barbashev hooking penalty, but managed only one shot on goal as the Blues’ ninth-ranked power play killed it off.
So the score remained 1-1 until Buchnevich ended a seven-game goal drought. Taking a nice drop pass from Marco Scandella, Buchnevich got a quick shot off from the slot for his 12th goal of the season to give the Blues a 2-1 lead at the 8:20 mark.
The Blues then padded their lead with two late goals in the period — the second of which came about as late as you can get.
First it was Sundqvist, who has battled COVID-19 as well as the after-effects from hip and knee surgeries this season, with a rebound goal. Justin Faulk fired a shot from distance, Samsonov left a rebound, and there was Sundqvist in front of the net for a quick goal. Just like that. So it was just 3-1 St. Louis with just 2:40 left in the second.
It looked like that’s how the period would end when Faulk sent a quick pass up ice with mere seconds remaining. Trailing on the play, Barbashev waited patiently for a pass from Buchnevich in the slot and whipped a shot past Samsonov for his 13th goal of the season. That’s just one off Barbashevs’s career high. The puck hit the back of the net with just 7/10ths of a second left in the period. That was it for Samsonov, who gave way to Zach Fucale in the third period.
Buchnevich got his second goal of the night with 3:52 left in the third period, an empty-netter that traveled three-fourths of the rink down the ice. It was a short-handed goal because the Capitals were on the power play.
