Center begins game firing up teammates, then scores two goals to help St.
Louis to seventh win in 10 games; Dunn sets NHL high with three-point game
ST. LOUIS -- There are certain things that are associated with performing acts in a premeditated way.
Most of them normally involve some sort of criminal activity, but not always. People tend to think about doing certain things and wondering over time whether a particular idea is good or not.
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| (St. Louis Blues photo)
Blues center Brayden Schenn (10) moves the puck away from Avalanche
defenseman Erik Johnson Thursday during the Blues' 6-1 win.
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Blues center Brayden Schenn thought about what he could do to help jump-start his teammates and fuel the Blues against the Colorado Avalanche on Thursday. Simply playing better would be a good start, especially after the disheartening loss two nights ago to the Minnesota Wild, but Schenn felt he needed to add fuel to a fire that needed a spark, an ignition, if you will.
So he stepped away from the faceoff dot, looked Avalanche captain Gabriel Landeskog in the eye and said, 'You wanna go?' Landeskog obliged, and the gloves were dropped three seconds in, revving up the crowd of 18,981 at Scottrade Center.
It certainly helped fuel the Blues' burning desire to compete and jacked the bench up, and the Blues followed it up with a convincing 6-1 victory, a victory Schenn not only backed up with his spirited fight but also by scoring two goals.
The Blues were coming off a 6-2 loss to the Wild, the third time in a month they had been embarrassed on home ice. Enough was enough.
"I thought about it. It's not a good feeling," Schenn said of the fight. "I talked to 'Panger' [Fox Sports Midwest analyst Darren Pang] in warmups actually, get his opinion on it. He thought 'why not,' so ... I wasn't sure if he was going to fight or not, Landeskog. I actually know him a little bit and like I said, he's a tough guy. He's a player who's tough and who also has skill, so those guys are hard to find and he was able to fight and I think (I was) just trying to get the guys going."
Boy did he ever.
The bench was fired up, the coaches were sensing the intensity, and when you're backed by almost 19,000 people, there's only one way to go with this.
"It just gets everyone into it right off the bat, I think," said Blues center Paul Stastny, who had a goal and an assist. "Big division game, big game for us, especially the way we came out against Minny and the way we've been playing at home, inconsistent. So I think right off the bat we knew, that first line was ready to go, that set the tone for our whole team, and we kind of just built off that."
"Uh, no, no, I don't think (I knew it was coming). I think 'Chief' [assistant coach Craig Berube] was asking 'Yeozy' [Blues coach Mike Yeo] if he knew it was coming and no one did, so ... two big boys kind of going at it. I think knowing that you play division from now on, rest of the year basically, they're all going to be physical games like that. We kind of just built off that."
So did goalie Carter Hutton, who rebounded from being pulled against Minnesota after allowing three goals on eight shots with a strong 23-save performance.
"No, I didn't know. I don't know what happened there," Hutton said. "It was good. He's a helluva player and that gets the crowd right into it, sends a message to everybody that we're not messing around tonight and he backs it up. He got two goals, I don't know. I never know who scores anyway. Yeah, it was awesome. What a player and he just shows how valuable he is to this team.
"Yeah, it's awesome. Truthfully, I hate fighting, especially when you get to know guys, you never want to see anyone get hurt. I'm kind of like the mom of the team I guess when it comes to fighting, but it's one of those things. It has its place and it gets the crowd right into it right away. I try not to tie my emotions to it too much because you don't want to get too pumped up. It definitely get the bench going, gets the crowd going and we played great."
Landeskog, the Avalanche captain, had his own reasons for doing it. He was looking to spark his team, which came into the game 2-3-1 the past six games after a 10-game winning streak.
"You can't just fight on home ice," Landeskog said. "That's the name of the game. We've got to be better on the road so I figure, 'start off the road trip and set the tone,' and that was really it. He asked me and I didn't have one this year so why not?"
Yeah, why not?
"Yeah, I thought we'd been a little bit flat at home lately," Schenn said. "You can try and start different ways, try to be physical early or offensive early. This is something we haven't done this year. Just trying to get the guys going. I don't do it often, but it's part of the game and it's good to get one every once in a while."
Yeo happened to start that line, and noticed something different when Schenn wasn't taking the opening faceoff.
"I was wondering what was going on when I saw 'Bergy' [Patrik Berglund] taking the faceoff," Yeo said. "People have different opinions of fighting, but it sends a message to your team. He wanted to send a message to the team and he did that.
"Guys played really hard for each other tonight. You saw the way guys were blocking shots and you saw 'Vladi' [Tarasenko] jumping in there when 'Stas' got hit. It was a team that had each other's backs tonight."
The Blues (33-20-3), who hopped a charter to Winnipeg for a big divisional battle with the Jets on Friday, scored four times in the second period to put the game away. They also got goals from Kyle Brodziak, Alex Pietrangelo and Ivan Barbashev, and rookie defenseman Vince Dunn picked up three assists, his NHL-best for points in a game.
"Kind of felt it in the morning," Yeo said. "But at the rink there yesterday, just getting ready for today, some good conversations with some guys. I said it before that we have a lot of character inside our locker room. It was a disappointing game a couple games ago and we were confident they were gonna bounce back."
The Blues are 9-0-1 the past 10 games against the Avalanche.
Gabriel Bourque scored for the Avalanche (29-20-5), who are 2-4-1 after a 10-game winning streak.
Jonathan Bernier allowed three goals on 20 shots and was pulled at 5:05 of the second period for Semyon Varlamov, who allowed three goals on 11 shots.
Schenn had given the Blues a 1-0 lead with a power-play goal 8 minutes 41 seconds into the first period, his 300th NHL point. It was a period the Blues played fundamentally sound and could have led by more than a goal. Compared to the 3-1 deficit the Blues faced against the Wild, it was a much better performance.
The period even involved teammates coming to Stastny's rescue after he was rocked by a big hit by Avalanche defenseman Nikita Zadorov.
Tarasenko was first in, along with Alexander Steen and Pietrangelo.
"I didn't see any of them when I left the ice," Stastny said. "I got put in a body bag there. I think whether it was the 'Schenner' fight or having 'Vladi,' 'Steener' and 'Petro,' a couple of guys come in like that, it just shows that we're playing for each other. It seems, the games we haven't been playing well, I think we've kind of just played on our own page and kind of not playing for each other, not playing for the guy next to you, not protecting your teammates, not blocking shots, not covering up for guys that make errors which happens throughout the game. On a day like today, I think there's another example of everyone kind of coming in and kind of protecting each other."
When Gabriel Bourque tied the game 1-1 at 2:50 of the second period after a Vladimir Sobotka turnover, getting his pocket picked, the Blues came back with the best answer of the night and scored scored four times, including twice in 48 seconds.
"Just a bad turnover and for me, [Bourque] gets me, I played with [Bourque] a bunch and he makes a pretty good move and gets it in," Hutton said. "From there, it's 1-1 and it's still really tight and we answer the bell. It's two quick ones and they switch goalies and we get another few and then it's out of reach."
Barbashev made it 2-1 at 4:17 on a shot from the left boards that seemed to fool Bernier, and Schenn scored his second at 5:05 to make it 3-1 on a nifty backhand following good, sustained pressure. Brodziak scored from the slot at 7:38 to make it 4-1, and Pietrangelo's one-timer from the left circle made it 5-1 at 15:01 after a good, solid shift in which the Blues forechecked the puck away, a theme throughout the game.
"I thought it was effective tonight, yeah," Yeo said of the forecheck. "I thought our forecheck was creating turnovers, getting in the offensive zone. Obviously setting up some zone time. I think 'Petro's goal was a good example of that."
Stastny's rebound goal at 6:00 of the third period made it 6-1, the most goals the Blues have scored in a game since beating Detroit 6-1 on Dec. 9 (26 games).
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| (St. Louis Blues photo)
Blues defenseman Vince Dunn (29) blocks a shot from Colorado's Gabriel
Landeskog Thursday. Dunn had three assists in a 6-1 Blues victory.
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"We can't be satisfied," Dunn said. "We're happy with our game but we gotta just take the positives from it and move it into tomorrow. We can't win them all. Especially at home, we've been struggling a little bit but at the same time I think it's just carrying our momentum into the next game whenever we can."
The Blues got some somber news when defenseman Joel Edmundson missed the last 48 minutes of the game. He sustained an upper-body injury to his right hand/wrist after blocking a Nail Yakupov shot.
"I can tell you he's out tomorrow," Yeo said. "But we'll have more news for you tomorrow.
"Obviously we dropped down to five D, and I thought the D all stepped up and did a great job. ... They did a great job. I thought everybody right from top to bottom, they were very solid."
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