St. Louis turned a tight road game into a rout Tuesday, rolling past Ottawa 7-2 at Canadian Tire Centre behind two goals apiece from Pius Suter, Jake Neighbours and Mason McTavish. The Blues have won back-to-back games and are 2-0-1 over their last three.
- Adam Jiricek scored his first NHL goal in his sixth career game.
- Joel Hofer stopped 15 shots for St. Louis.
- Samuel Ersson made 19 saves for Ottawa.
- Pavel Buchnevich supplied three assists, while Suter and McTavish each added an assist to their two-goal nights.
- The Senators entered on a three-game winning streak but fell to 5-2-0. St. Louis improved to 3-2-1.
Suter opened the scoring short-handed at 14:28 of the first period. Colton Parayko forced a turnover with a heavy wall check in the Blues’ end, then sprung Suter up ice. Suter carried in alone and beat Ersson from the left hash marks.
Neighbours made it 2-0 at 13:20 of the second, firing from the high slot. Ottawa got back within one late in the period when Tim Stutzle won a puck battle behind the net and fed Claude Giroux in the right circle. Giroux snapped a shot over Hofer’s blocker at 17:52.
The answer came 33 seconds later. Jonatan Berggren found McTavish in traffic near the crease, and McTavish tucked a backhand into an open net for a 3-1 Blues lead heading into the third.
St. Louis broke it open in the final frame. Suter scored from a sharp angle at 7:54, slipping a one-timer beneath Ersson’s right arm. Neighbours converted Buchnevich’s rush feed at 14:46, then McTavish struck on the power play from the right circle 47 seconds later.
Jiricek added the seventh St. Louis goal at 16:32, beating Ersson from above the right circle for the first goal of his NHL career. Fabian Zetterlund scored a late Ottawa power-play goal at 18:33 to close the scoring.
