Husso key for Blues, particularly early, in 5-1 win over Capitals

Goalie makes several key saves early to get slow-starting Blues 

off on the right foot; Buchnevich leads offense with two goals, assist

By LOU KORAC
ST. LOUIS -- The Washington Capitals came to play early on Friday night.

The Capitals were the more relentless side at Enterprise Center against the Blues, particularly in the opening 10 minutes when Washington was outshooting the Blues 10-3 and leading by a goal.

(St. Louis Blues/Scott Rovak)

Blues goalie Ville Husso made 26 saves in a 5-1 win over the Washington

Capitals on Friday. Husso made several key saves early in the first period.

But that's when a goalie can become a difference-maker. One save is all it takes.
To heck with one save, Ville Husso made a number of them to keep the ship afloat, including one on Brett Leason early and the Blues fed off their netminder's play and scored five unanswered in a 5-1 win over the Capitals, an Eastern Conference toughie.

Husso, playing for the first time since sustaining a lower-body injury Dec. 7, or 31 days, against the Florida Panthers, made his presence felt immediately; he went from his right to left to kick out Leason's close range attempt with his right toe off the goal line just 1:53 into the game. 

Yes, Daniel Sprong beat Husso at 2:02 with a wrister from the right circle, but that would be the lone blemish of the night for the Blues netminder.

The save on Leason was jaw-dropping, and it was one of a number early on against the swarming Capitals, who were relentless, on the puck, on the hunt with their forecheck and pinning the Blues (20-10-5) back.

"When I came to the rink, I just focused on the start and the first period," Husso said. "It was nice to get some saves right away. After that one save (on Leason), I felt like I was into the game. Sometimes it's hard to come (to play) when you're a month away and you don't play for a month. Today I was lucky to make those saves and then guys scored a couple goals. It was a good hockey game for us and a big win."

Husso finished with 26 saves, equalling his total when he beat the San Jose Sharks 4-1 on Nov. 18 after missing 24 days due to COVID-19 protocol. He's 4-2-1 on the season with a 2.28 goals-against average and .931 save percentage.

"I think it starts from the practice too," Husso said on being ready. "I try to challenge the guys there and try to stop every puck there. You might be ready right away when you battle in practice every day. That's something that I learned last year, those practice habits and I have a guy like 'Binner' next to me and every guy looks at him and how hard he works. That's the one big thing."

The Blues, who rebounded from a tough 5-3 loss at Pittsburgh Wednesday, had no choice but to respond to their goaltender's solid workload.

"Yeah, I mean, you stole my quote there," Blues defenseman Torey Krug said. "He did a great job. He picked up right where he left off. He’s been doing it all year for us. So for him to come in, make those key saves in key moments and keep us in the game early. And respond the way that we did after that. He was our best player tonight and we needed that. So it was a good job by him backstopping us, and we felt the energy from him."

Washington could have conceivably led by two, three, four goals early on had it not been for some missed opportunities and Husso's play, and when Krug scored at 12:10 of the first period to tie the game, there was a sense that the Blues figured out how to counteract the Capitals (20-7-8).

"I think Krug’s goal really got us settled in, to be honest with you," Blues coach Craig Berube said. "Then we started to just do what we needed to do against them. I think early on we weren’t working back hard enough for pucks in our zone and killing plays. We let them come at us with too much speed and too much separation throughout the neutral zone and in our zone. They’re a good team, and they’ve got a lot of talent. They make plays and that’s what they did early on.

"(Husso) helped us hang in there early for sure. They came at us pretty quick. We were a little on our heels for 10 minutes there. It gives the team a good boost for sure. But I thought we settled in after that and played a pretty sold game -- a good second period and obviously we finished it off in the third. But Ville was solid through and through. He did some real good things in the first period."

The Blues turned the tides in the second when they outscored the Capitals 3-0, giving them a plus-22 advantage in the middle frame (51-29).

Pavel Buchnevich, who had two goals and an assist in the game, had his hands on two of those goals, including scoring to give the Blues a 2-1 lead at 9:08 before Oskar Sundqvist scored at 17:20 off a rebound to make it 3-1 and then Buchnevich assisting on Ivan Barbashev's goal with 0.7 seconds left in the period to make it 4-1.

"Well, you saw the way that they started. It had a similar feel to Pittsburgh," Krug said. "They were coming up through the neutral zone with a lot of speed, pushing our gaps back. We weren’t able to close out gaps in the D-zone. So I think that was the biggest difference. Near the end of the first and then into the second, we ended plays, ended cycles and they weren’t able to get to third chances. So once we ended plays, our second guy came in quick and broke out a lot usually. So that was the main difference.

"Pretty good third period (too). We had talked about it before we went out there. We want to be a third-period team, especially in our own building. We’ve done a great job of it so far, especially after what happened in Pittsburgh it was a good response. I don’t think we started off very well but we finished strong which is important."

The Blues did stay on their toes and closed out a solid win. After being outscored 5-0 the past two games in the third period, they continued to make plays and scored on Buchnevich's shorthanded, empty-net goal with 3:52 to play.

(St. Louis Blues/Scott Rovak)

Blues forward Oskar Sundqvist (middle) raises his arm after scoring a goal

against the Washington Capitals on Friday in a 5-1 win.

"I thought we kept playing and did a good job," Berube said. "Killed off a couple of big penalties in the third, so that’s important. We played 200 feet. We didn’t just sit back. We forechecked and tried to create some offense. I thought we did a good job not giving up odd-man rushes in the third period, which is really important when you’ve got a lead like that. That was one of the big things, I thought, the first period to the third period, the guys really adjusted on that and took away their rush game."

And took away the Capitals' scoring chances. Husso had plenty to do with that, and it was great to see after missing so much time due to COVID protocol and injury.

Husso is 6-0-0 in his past seven home appearances with a 1.43 goals-against average and .953 save percentage, stopping 203 of 213 shots in 418:47 ice time dating back to April 10, 2021.

"It's always hard to be away from the team when you don't play, especially not in the lineup," Husso said. "But then at the same time, at the rink and at practice, just need to battle and challenge the guys too so that you can make the practice like games. That's one of the biggest things for me."

"That was kind of unlucky to get hurt at that point. I'm here now and I try to win some games. We have a good goalie duo here, even 'Chucky' too, Every day it's a good challenge.