ST. LOUIS _ No matter the location or time of year, the St. Louis Blues have had Colorado's number lately. And right now that number is six. As in six consecutive victories over Stan Kroenke's hockey team.
Monday's contest was for mid-December bragging rights in the Central Division, and the entire Western Conference for that matter. There's a ton of hockey to be played this season, but for right now, the bragging rights go to St. Louis, 5-2 winners over the Avalanche at Enterprise Center.
"I think there's a tendency for our group, when we play against those high-level teams, we seem to show up and play with more consistency," Ryan O'Reilly said.
That certainly seems to be the case against the Avalanche. The Blues got a hat trick from David Perron, the fifth of his career, Jordan Kyrou scored his first goal of the season, but Vince Dunn had the game-winner on a power-play goal with 37 seconds left in the second period.
In addition, O'Reilly and Oskar Sundqvist had two assists apiece, and Jordan Binnington was solid, stopping 26 of 28 shots.
"That's a tough team," coach Craig Berube said. "They're fast. They've got a lot of speed and I thought our guys did a real good job. Binner, he had to make saves and he made saves.
"Our guys really get keyed up to play against (Nathan) MacKinnon and them guys. It seems like we really kind of thrive on that stuff, especially our 'D.' They get pumped up to play against good players like that. They do a good job of making sure they're not going to score."
Colorado, the NHL's highest-scoring team at 3.66 goals per game, got the Blues twice in the second period to take a 2-1 lead. But that was it.
It's the first time in 10 games, or since Nov. 21, that the Avalanche have scored fewer than three goals.
"Any time you have a pretty high offensive team, especially a guy like MacKinnon over there _ we all know what he's capable of _ we seem to tighten up pretty good," Alex Pietrangelo said. "Those guys over there, it takes five guys to defend and we defended with five guys tonight so we had success.
"They're gonna get chances. I mean, those guys have 50 points for a reason."
Not sure if he was talking about MacKinnon's individual point total or Colorado's point total in the standings, but Pietrangelo was close on both counts.
MacKinnon had an assist but no goals on nine shot attempts, giving him 51 points this season on 20 goals and 31 assists. The Avalanche (21-9-3) remained at 45 points, second-best in the West (and the Central) to St. Louis. They do, however, have two games in hand with the Blues.
Meanwhile, the Blues are 21-8-6, good for 48 points after winning their third consecutive game on this four-game homestand.
Asked if he paid any attention to the standings at this time of year, Pietrangelo said: "Well, it's better than last year."
To put that in perspective, the Blues didn't reach 48 points last season until Jan. 23, with a 5-1 victory at Anaheim. That was game No. 1 of the Blues' franchise record 11-game winning streak. So yes, the Blues are a little ahead of schedule as compared to last season.
"Yeah, we've put ourselves in a good spot, right?" Pietrangelo said. "Last year we just weren't finding ways to win games. This year we are."
Perron had a big hand in Monday's success obviously, scoring goals number 13, 14 and 15 of the season to take over the team goal-scoring lead from Brayden Schenn (14).
With just 1:09 left in the first period Monday, O'Reilly was able to corral a rolling puck near the right point. Meanwhile, Perron was sneaking down through the left faceoff circle. "Sneaking" because no one from the Avalanche seemed to notice him.
O'Reilly sent a pinpoint pass down low for an easy one-timer by Perron, who had a lot of open net against Colorado goalie Philipp Grubauer.
"I had the whole net," Perron said. "I was surprised. I shot the puck and I didn't really look at the net."
The Blues' power-play drought stretched to 0-for-15 with a missed opportunity in the first period. But it ended with a bang _ two bangs, actually in the final 1:55 of the second period.
The sequence started when Nazem Kadri drew a double-minor _ four minutes _ for a high-stick on Colton Parayko that drew blood, cutting Parayko's chin. After working to win the puck along the boards, Perron took a pass from Pietrangelo in the left faceoff circle, loaded it up on his stick, and sent a riser past Grubauer, tying the game at 2-2.
Because of the four-minute penalty _ and the fact that Perron's goal came in less than two minutes of power play time _ the Blues stayed with the man advantage after Perron's goal. Dunn cashed in, with his fifth goal of the season, just 36 seconds later, to give the Blues the lead.
Seeing an opening in the Colorado defense, Dunn skated directly toward the net, fed Tyler Bozak at the last minute and then got it right back from Bozak. The give-and-go exchange resulted in a wide-open net or Dunn.
"I just kinda just saw a hole there," Dunn said. "Wanted to shoot, but saw Bozy backdoor. He made an unbelievable pass."
Youth was served in the third period when Kyrou scored his first goal of the season, and second of his NHL career. Then Perron got his hat trick on an empty-netter with 3:55 left, resulting in chants of "Kroenke (Stinks)!" from the crowd of 15,263 that braved the elements Monday.
"It was pretty cool to see all the people that traveled today," Perron said. "The roads weren't great from starting in the morning to all the way at night. So it was good to see that many people traveling and they were loud."
Undoubtedly, it was worth the trip.
