ST. LOUIS — If nothing else, the Seattle Kraken have been a tough out this season when it comes to playing the Blues. And Wednesday proved to be more of the same before the 23rd sellout crowd (18,096) of the season at Enterprise Center.
When the teams met on Jan. 13, the Blues trailed by one goal after two periods. This time around, the Blues were up — but by just one goal — after two periods.
The Blues have had trouble putting away bottom-dwellers in the standings this season. But they did it Monday with a workmanlike 5-1 win over the Arizona Coyotes.
Could they do it two times in a row against an also-ran?
The answer Wednesday was yes.
The Blues took care of another team you’re supposed to take care off with a 4-1 victory over Seattle that took some hard work and elbow grease.
They improved to 40-20-10 for the season, for 90 points. That’s just one point behind second-place Minnesota in the Central Division. And wouldn’t you know it, the Wild are in town Friday for a showdown contest. Seattle fell to 22-42-6.
The victory extended the Blues' point streak to six games (5-0-1).
The Blues had all kinds of chances early, thanks in part to six minutes’ worth of penalties assessed to the Kraken.
Just 2:59 in, Jonas Donskoi went off for tripping Nathan Walker and the Blues had some good chances but couldn’t solve Kraken goalie Chris Driedger.
Well, only 34 seconds after that penalty was killed off, the Kraken were back in the sin bin when Jared McCann drew a four-minute high-sticking penalty for drawing blood on Colton Parayko. The Blues got absolutely nothing going in the opening two minutes of that infraction. In fact, if you didn’t know better you might think the Kraken were on the power play and not St. Louis.
Seattle has a league-leading six shorthanded goals since Feb. 21, and they almost got a couple here. In fact, Seattle had three shots on the penalty kill — plus a post struck by Carson Soucy — before the Blues even had a shot on goal during their power play.
But the Blues’ first shot found the back of the net. On an odd-man rush, with Ivan Barbashev skating down the slot, he and Robert Thomas played a game of catch with the puck. Streaking down left wing, Thomas got it last and beat Driedger backdoor to make it 1-0 at the 8:38 mark of the opening period.
For Thomas, it was his 16th goal of the season, extending his point streak to a career-best seven games. He has eight goals in his last 11 games.
It was a wild and loose opening period, with Seattle getting as many quality chances as the Blues, but Ville Husso kept them off the scoresheet with some help from his defense, including a sliding play by Calle Rosen to break up a 2-on-1.
For all the scoring up front this season, the Blues haven’t been quite as potent on the blueline. But they finally got a 10-goal scorer on the back end when Justin Faulk gave the Blues a 2-0 lead at the 7:56 mark of the second.
This was one of those plays where the primary assist was almost more impressive than the goal itself. Brayden Schenn, the Blues’ points leader since Jan. 1 with 39, sent a cross-ice pass to Faulk crashing down left wing. Faulk beat Driedger for his 10th goal of the season, his first 10-goal campaign since 2018-19 with the Carolina Hurricanes.
But the Kraken, who were aggressive offensively Wednesday, quickly cut the lead in half. Just two minutes after the Faulk goal, Seattle defenseman Will Borgen took a shot that appeared to flick off the stick of Schenn to Jordan Eberle, who shot the loose puck past Husso for his 17th goal midway through the second.
The Blues’ third-ranked power play got two more chances late in the second period. But they couldn’t cash in before the second ended despite some good looks. They did take that last power play into the third period however.
The Blues had plenty of chances to pad their lead, including a post hit by Thomas. But the Kraken also had their share of opportunities, including a breakaway by Morgan Geekie that was broken up on a hustling backcheck by Nick Leddy.
When the Blues couldn’t do anything with the 1:34 worth of power play that carried into the third period, they were 1-for-5 on the power play. Seattle, meanwhile, had yet to have a single power play. And it was still 2-1.
But just when he was needed most, Jordan Kyrou snapped out of his recent funk, restoring the Blues’ two-goal lead. Kyrou was attempting to weave his way through traffic down the slot when the puck bounced off Seattle defenseman Cale Fleury.
Kyrou whacked at the puck in mid-air — about knee high — and into the net it went. That’s called hand-eye coordination. Kyrou gave a sigh of relief when the goal light came on for his 23rd of the season to make it a 3-1 game at the 2:34 mark of the final period.
Until that score, Kyrou had scored only one goal in 14 games since the beginning of March. He also missed three games since then due to illness, returning Monday against Arizona.
After six power-play chances by St. Louis, the Kraken finally got a power play with 4:44 left to play when Alexei Toropchenko went off for holding. But the Blues killed off the penalty and banked another two points.
But only after Ryan O’Reilly scored an empty-net goal with 1:15 to play, his 17th of the season, to close out the scoring.
