ST. LOUIS _ The Blues guaranteed themselves nothing Sunday, but with their 4-1 win over Nashville, they put themselves in good position to finish third in the Central Division.
Vladimir Tarasenko scored his 37th goal of the season, David Perron had three points and Jake Allen made 35 saves as the club won a matchup between two teams who came into the day with the same number of points.
The Blues now have 93 on the season, two more than Nashville, and still have a game in hand on the Predators. The club also picked up its 42nd regulation/overtime win, or ROW, which is the first tie-breaker, so with Nashville having 38, the Blues are guaranteed to that.
In other words, Sunday's win, which gave the Blues a point in nine straight games and 14 of the last 15, was monumental in staying in third place and likely facing the scuffling Minnesota Wild in the first round of the playoffs.
The Blues are off Monday before hosting Winnipeg on Tuesday at Scottrade Center.
The Blues got four even-strength goals Sunday, while Nashville's only tally of the afternoon came on a 5-on-3 power-play goal.
As expected, the atmosphere Sunday had a playoff-like feel from the start.
The Blues and Predators needed little to get them going, and the crowd didn't seem to require any extra incentive either.
If they did, the fans got it when Tarasenko put the Blues ahead 1-0 with his 37th goal of the season.
Tarasenko's third goal in four games came just 5:22 into the opening period, as Jaden Schwartz made the play happen, carrying the puck into the offensive zone and dishing to Tarasenko, who found a tiny slither of space and put a shot past Nashville goalie Juuse Saros.
It was quite a turn of events because moments before the Blues took their 1-0 lead, they were facing a Nashville 5-on-3 power play for 1:04, the result of a cross-checking penalty by Joel Edmundson and a league-leading 14th too many men on the ice infraction. But the Blues killed that, with Nashville registering one shot on the two-man advantage, a slap shot by P.K. Subban that Allen denied. The Blues quickly followed with their first goal against the Predators in five periods. It came against goalie Saros, who helped blanked the Blues on 25 shots in a 4-0 win for the Preds on Dec. 30. He got the start in the second game of their back-to-back set Sunday, after Pekka Rinne's 31-save shutout of Minnesota on Saturday.
The Blues' penalty kill wasn't done with its 5-on-3 work Sunday, forced into a full two minutes of duty when Edmundson and Perron were whistled simultaneously midway through the first period.
Edmundson's second penalty of the day was a legitimate tripping call, but fans booed a slashing call on Perron. He put his stick into the midsection of Nashville's Vernon Fidler, who dropped to the ice.
Blues coach Mike Yeo gave official Garret Rank an earful and it continued after Ryan Johansen gave Nashville its first goal of the game for a 1-1 tie with 8:38 left in the first period.
On a flurry in front of the Blues' net, Allen made the first save on Johansen, but he gathered the rebound and lifted it over the netminder for his 14th goal of the season.
The Blues and Predators went to the second period tied, but that lasted just 55 seconds.
Alexander Steen put the Blues ahead 2-1 on his 15th goal of the season, sliding a shot past Saros after Perron slid him a pass from behind the net. The heads-up feed that eluded the Predators' Colton Sissons was Perron's second point of the day and he wasn't finished.
About six minutes later, Perron handed the Blues a 3-1 lead on his 17th goal for the season. He skated down to the right dot and put a wrist shot far-side over the right leg of Saros for a two-goal lead with 13:13 remaining in the second period.
The Blues had their work boots on Sunday.
The best example was Jaden Schwartz blocking two shots later in the second period _ without a stick.
Though Allen would need his stick, he came up with a timely save on a breakaway by Colin Wilson, keeping the score 3-1 with 38 seconds left in the middle frame.
That allowed the Blues to take their two-goal lead into the third period, where they stretched it out with Edmundson's third goal of the season. He jumped on a Predators' turnover in the Blues' defensive zone and went coast-to-coast, burning his own rebound past Saros for a 4-1 lead with 11:49 to go.
Edmundson's goal came on the Blues' 20th shot of the game. They were outshot by Nashville 36-25, but had plenty of offense in a lopsided win that will go a long way to help their chances of finishing third in the division.
