ST. LOUIS _ The Blues didn't do much after the first period, but they did enough in the first period to defeat the Carolina Hurricanes, 4-1, Tuesday at Enterprise Center and reach the .500 mark again at 5-5-3.
Ryan O'Reilly scored three goals, Robby Fabbri added his first Blues goal since 2016, and Vladimir Tarasenko had two assists as St. Louis bounced back from Saturday's 5-1 disaster against Minnesota.
O'Reilly's third goal of the night, and seventh of the season, came with 3 minutes 10 seconds left in the third period after Carolina had pulled goalie Curtis McElhinney.
It marked only the second time all season the Blues have allowed fewer than three goals in a game, and not surprisingly both were Blues victories. The other such victory came Oct. 20 in Toronto, also by a 4-1 score.
Other than O'Reilly's empty-netter, all the other scoring came in the first period. A pesky Carolina club outplayed the Blues for most of the final two periods, but St. Louis goalie Chad Johnson was sharp in only his second start of the season recording his first victory as a member of the Blues.
He stopped 38 of 39 Carolina shots.
