ST. LOUIS — There are a lot of ways for a team to get a win in the face of a prolonged series of losses and subpar play, and the simplest is the road the Blues took on Monday: Have a goalie play a great game.
The Blues overall game was by no means a perfect one, especially in the second period where Vancouver had 17 shots on goal, but Ville Husso kept them off the board until the Blues could claim a 3-0 lead on their way to a 4-1 win over the Canucks and which, in the case of constant flux the Central Division is in, bumped the Blues into third place, one point ahead of idle Nashville, which has played one more game than the Blues.
Vladimir Tarasenko scored twice, both in the third period, and Marco Scandella and David Perron once for the Blues, who had lost two in a row and five of their previous six. Both teams now head to British Columbia for a rematch on Wednesday night. Tarasenko's empty-net goal with 2:13 to go in the game, was his 500th point with the Blues.
Husso stopped 35 of 36 shots he faced. He beat the Canucks 3-1 in Vancouver on Jan. 23, in the midst of a personal six-game winning streak. Times have been a bit tougher lately for Husso, whose play has been more reflective of the team as a whole. He came into the game with just three wins in his past eight games and had allowed four or more goals in four of those games.
But on Monday, he had one of his best games in a while, taking a shutout into the third period.
Coach Craig Berube talked Monday morning about how goals like the one the Blues gave up early in the second period against Carolina were deflating, but Monday night, the saves Husso made were energizing for the Blues, not to mention game-saving. The best cure for being deflated by goals is not to give any up.
The Blues took a 2-0 lead into the third period and 49 seconds got a goal that gave them needed breathing space. Tarasenko took a pass from Pavel Buchnevich to the left of goalie Jaroslav Halak, and while Halak stopped Tarasenko’s first shot, Conor Garland couldn’t swat the rebound out of the air and the puck went back to Tarasenko, who didn’t miss the second time.
That came in handy with 17:47 to go when Vancouver finally got one past Husso, with one-time Blue Brad Hunt finishing off a two-on-one.
Scandella scored the first goal, which took a very circuitous path to get in the net. Tarasenko, the only Blue still with the team who played with the team when Halak was here, took a shot from along the goal line to the right of the net that was tipped by Canucks defenseman William Lockwood. The puck, which otherwise would have hit Halak’s leg pad, came up in the air and hit Halak in the shoulder, and was headed over the net when it hit the top-most part of the shaft of Halak’s stick and came back in front of the net, where it hit Halak’s arm again and then went in off Scandella, who was standing in the crease.
It was the second goal of the season for Scandella, whose other goal was into empty net from 182 feet, giving him the longest and shortest goals for the team this season.
More importantly, it gave the Blues the first goal in a game for the first time since they played Winnipeg on March 13, after which they started a streak where they got one point out of their next five games.
The game took on an even odder look with 5:58 to go in the first when the Blues took a 2-0 lead for the first time since they went up 3-0 on Nashville on March 12 in much happier days for the Blues.
Ivan Barbashev stole a puck along the boards and the Blues’ end and headed up ice on a two-on-one with Perron on his right. With one-time Blue Brad Hunt stuck in between them, Barbashev kept the puck until Hunt went down and then passed across to Perron, who put it past Halak for his 23rd goal of the season, retaking sole possession of the team. Perron had his eight-game point streak ended on Saturday against Carolina and has 11 goals in the past 10 games. Perron has 12 goals in March, making him just the third Blue to have 12 or more goals in a calendar month; Brett Hull did it 14 times and Scott Young did it once, in October of 2000. Only Edmonton’s Leon Draisaitl, with 15 goals in November, has had more in a month this season.
The Blues had trouble in the second period, going almost nine minutes before getting their first shot on goal and being outshot 12-0 before Jordan Kyrou finally forced Halak to make a save. At the other end, Husso was protecting the lead with a series of nice saves against good chances for the Canucks. After two periods, Vancouver had 2.7 expected goals, according to moneypuck.com, but hadn’t put anything past Husso.
