ST. LOUIS _ After the Blues lost to Minnesota on Tuesday night, forward Alexander Steen was asked how the Blues could get through the upcoming run of Central Division games playing like they did against Minnesota.
"Well, we're not gonna play like this," Steen said.
He was right. The Blues came out battling from the drop of the puck, literally, and then cruised to a rare easy win, beating the Colorado Avalanche, 6-1, at Scottrade Center on Thursday. The Blues now head to Winnipeg for a game with the Jets, who are tied with Nashville for the Central Division lead. The Blues are four points back in the Central, and the win assured they would stay ahead of Dallas for third place.
Brayden Schenn started a fight with Colorado's Gabriel Landeskog on the opening faceoff, drawing a five-minute fighting penalty but putting a charge into his teammates. Schenn scored in the first period and the Blues then scored four times in the second period, with goals from Ivan Barbashev, Schenn again, Kyle Brodziak and Alex Pietrangelo. The Blues then got goal No. 6, giving them their most since Dec. 9, from Paul Stastny.
Stastny almost scored again, but he had a shot that hit both posts and stayed out.
The one bit of bad news for the Blues was that Joel Edmundson left the game in the first period with an upper-body injury and did not return.
Carter Hutton was back in goal for the Blues and stopped all but of the 24 shots he faced. Colorado got its only goal, which tied the game at 1-1, early in the second period after a turnover by Vladimir Sobotka.
