Schenn, Steen score to help St. Louis set record for most victories
through 17 games to start season, tie mark for most points to start season
ST. LOUIS -- No matter the situation, whether it be a deficit or a lead, these Blues feel they have the moxey to get the necessary two points at the end of the night.
The Blues knew they were facing the worst team in the NHL in the Arizona Coyotes, with their two wins in 17 games coming into Thursday (neither coming in regulation), and St. Louis was at the top of the standings.
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| (St. Louis Blues photo)
Blues goalie Carter Hutton (left) makes a save on a shot by the Coyotes'
Christian Dvorak on Thursday at Scottrade Center.
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The Blues were the hot team, but needed to guard against that proverbial letdown. Coach Mike Yeo even cautioned against it during the morning skate, and true to form, it went right down to the wire.
But at the end of the day, the Blues got what they wanted when Brayden Schenn and Alexander Steen scored in the shootout, and Carter Hutton slammed the door shut by making both of his shootout saves in a 3-2 victory over the Coyotes before 18,156 at Scottrade Center.
The Blues (13-3-1), who set a franchise record with their 13th win in the first 17 games of a season, also tied a record for most points (27) in the first 17 games, tying the mark also set by the 2013-14 team. They've won 12 in a row against the Coyotes (2-13-3) and are 15-0-1 against them the past 16 games.
All those numbers are fine and dandy, but this one needed extra labor. This one would not come easy, as Arizona is 2-3-2 the past seven games after starting 0-10-1.
"That's what we expected," Blues coach Mike Yeo said of the Coyotes. "The couple games that we pre-scouted obviously, they gave Pittsburgh a handful in that game, but more so, that was a back-to-back situation from the way that they played in Washington [Monday]. That was what we expected tonight."
"Yeah, it was a wild finish for sure," said Hutton, who got the game puck for his newly born son Palmer. "It's one of those games, I thought they pushed in the second to get two goals and then I think we kind of smartened up in the third.
"I thought we tilted the ice in the third. It was a pretty quiet period for me. It’s one of those ones for me mentally, that’s what keeps me sharp, periods like that, staying in it, because you know they’re going to get their chances when gets to overtime. You compete, you make some saves and then we get to a shootout and we get two of three it’s obviously big. We get two of them, we’ve got to win it."
Tilted the ice for sure, much like the Blues did in New Jersey on Tuesday in a 1-1 game that they totally took control of and won 3-1.
Down 2-1 Thursday, the Blues outshot the Coyotes 12-2 and got the tying goal from Alex Pietrangelo 5 minutes, 1 second in.
"That we needed to be better," Pietrangelo said on what was talked about during the second intermission. "I think we got what we deserved. I don’t think we played, especially in that second period, with the puck the way we needed to play. They want to come with speed, they’ve got guys who can make plays and we let them do exactly that."
The Coyotes, who got two goals from Brendan Perlini and 36 saves from Antti Raanta, were stingy for two periods and pressed and played aggressively with their young legs, at times hemming the Blues in deep and not giving them outlets. But then when, as the Blues said, the ice tilted, they began to establish their forecheck pushing for the tying goal.
"We just got refocused, but the second period, we weren't good," Yeo said. "The first period was pretty decent, but the second period, we came out with a real strong effort, grabbed the lead and then we stopped doing the things that we needed to do. Credit to them; it's not just on us, but we stopped checking the way we were checking. We gave up way too many scoring chances, way too many odd-man rushes. That's not our game."
The Blues went ahead 1-0 on Joel Edmundson's fifth of the season 5:14 into the second for a 1-0 lead after a nifty tape-to-tape feed from Chris Thorburn from the right side to the slot for the redirection.
"I haven’t made a play like that in I don’t know how long," Thorburn said of his first point as a Blue. "But credit goes to 'Vova' [Vladimir Tarasenko]. He had that change in the offensive zone. The puck came around the wall and then I get lost coming off the bench and the puck comes right to me and then [Edmundson] is there to direct it in, so he did a great job of putting it in."
But that's when the Coyotes started to take some control and they got the tying goal from Perlini at 9:38 after the Blues failed to get a puck out of their zone, and then Perlini scored on the power play with 1:19 remaining in the period for a 2-1 lead.
"We were prepared," Thorburn said. "We knew it was going to be a tough game. Our coaches did a great job preparing us. It was just one of those games where things weren’t going our way for the large percentage of games in the past. It was just a matter of getting down to what we’re good at and I think the third period we kind of bounced back to St. Louis Blues hockey.
"... Yeah, there were some guys that stepped up. We knew, especially coming into the second intermission, guys knew, but yeah just some reassurance of what kind of team we are and what we’re capable."
The teams traded terrific overtime chances, but both Hutton and Raanta made breakaway saves to preserve the game, with Hutton stopping Oliver Ekman-Larsson with 1:28 remaining and then Raanta thwarting Jaden Schwartz five seconds later.
Earlier in the OT, Blues defenseman Vince Dunn had the winner on his stick but couldn't lift the puck over a sprawled Raanta after Steen tried to slip one short side past the right blocker.
And when it got to the shootout, Schenn, playing against older brother Luke for the sixth time in their NHL careers and improving to 6-0-0 against Luke, improved to 2-for-2 in his Blues career in shootouts (he was 1-for-12 coming into the season) on the Blues' first attempt.
Hutton did his part by stopping Swansea, Ill. native Clayton Keller and then Derek Stepan on Arizona's second attempt after Tarasenko fired his shot wide to Raanta's right.
Stepan had a slow delivery, slow process that can sometimes be frustrating for a goalie, but Hutton stayed with him and got an arm on it to set Steen up for the winner.
"I kind of have a process I go through, we score, I get a save, whatever happens I just kind of reset myself and just focus in," Hutton said. "If you let your emotions get involved with the crowd and the energy, you can kind of feed off that too much. I find my emotions will play with the crowd, the way I play, so I try to stay even-keel. And honestly just trying to be patient. I think if you watch those two again, I’m just staying on my feet, being patient, because if you move first, these guys are so good, they exploit you."
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| (St. Louis Blues photo)
Blues center Paul Stastny (right) looks to move the puck by a pair of
Arizona skaters, including Jason Demers (55) and Derek Stepan.
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Steen, now 22-for-50 lifetime in the shootout, came in with a burst of speed and whistled a rooftop shot past Raanta to end it.
"You know Stepan is a shooter and I just wait on him, wait on him, and I was able to get my arm on it and then Steener ices it," Hutton said.
It marks the sign of a good team to win without their best.
"It is. Yep. No question," Yeo said. "A sign of a good team again that maybe things aren't going your way in the game and maybe you get away from your game a little bit, but you can find it. That doesn't have to turn into something that you can't recover from. And I thought that we recovered nicely and when we needed 'Hutts' to hold us in there when we weren't on top of things he did a great job."
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