The Blues' mastery on the road _ and Jake Allen's mastery there too _ continued on Friday as the Blues beat the Stars, 3-1, at American Airlines Center in Dallas.
The Blues have points in nine straight road games, with a 7-0-2 record. The bad news for the Blues is they now have to come home to play Pittsburgh at Enterprise Center on Saturday.
The Blues carried a 1-0 lead late into the third period, when Dallas' Roope Hintz scored with 3:11 to play to tie the game. The goal came just nine seconds after Hintz left the penalty box for high sticking.
But the Blues responded very quickly. Eighteen seconds later, Ivan Barbashev fed Ryan O'Reilly in a two-on-one and scored for the first time since Nov. 9.
Allen stopped 30 of 31 shots he faced, and some of them were spectacular. Allen is 4-0-2 on the road this season and came into the game with a .915 save percentage there, compared to .833 in his one game at home this season.
The Blues went 2-0-1 on the trip that also took them to Nashville and Tampa Bay.
Dallas pulled goalie Ben Bishop with about 1:40 to go, and Barbashev finished up the scoring with an empty-net goal. Barbashev has one goal and four assists in his past two games.
Colton Parayko scored to give the Blues an early lead, something they haven't seen much of lately, and that first-period goal was still the only one in the game as the Blues led the Stars 1-0 after two periods.
The Blues have given up the first goal in six of their past seven games, the only exception being their 5-0 win over Calgary. The Blues are 3-2-2 in those seven games.
Not only is it unusual for the Blues to be ahead, but it's also unusual for Allen, who is starting in goal, to have the lead. In Allen's six starts so far this season, the opponent has scored the first goal.
Allen kept the Blues ahead in the second period with some great saves on Dallas, especially on a flurry of shots early in the second that was capped by Allen getting his arm in front of a shot by Justin Dowling. The Blues outshot Dallas 21-18 through two periods.
It looked like the Blues had gone up 2-0 on a goal by Nathan Walker as he stuffed in a rebound of his own shot at the post, but Dallas challenged the play and on review, Walker was clearly offside and the goal came off the board.
Dowling was assessed a penalty late in the second, the only penalty in the first two minutes, and the Blues will have 38 seconds of power play to start the third period.
Parayko scored with 4:19 to go in the first period. He skated the puck out from behind the net to the blueline and took a shot that found its way through some traffic and a screen by Zach Sanford to go in. Parayko's only other goal this season was against Arizona on Nov. 12.
The Blues outshot Dallas 11-5 in the period and had a 21-12 edge in shot attempts.
