The St. Louis Blues are on the biggest roll in team history going into Monday night’s game at the Winnipeg Jets.
The Blues (43-28-7, 93 points) won their franchise-record 12th straight when they held on for a 5-4 victory over the Colorado Avalanche on Saturday. That broke the previous team record of 11 set during the 2018-19 season as St. Louis was on its way to winning its only Stanley Cup.
The win streak is also the longest in the NHL this season, topping the Jets’ 11-game run from Jan. 22 to Feb. 26.
“It’s very cool,” said St. Louis goalie Jordan Binnington, who was part of the 2019 team. “It’s good to enjoy these moments, especially at home. It’s really fun to play here right now and you can tell there’s good energy all around.
“At the same time, we’ve got to focus and keep looking forward while we’re here.”
The Blues raced out to a 4-0 second-period lead on Saturday, but the Avalanche pulled to within one, 4-3, late in the third period. Robert Thomas scored an empty-net goal with 31 seconds left before Colorado added another tally with nine seconds remaining.
Thomas also had three assists to run his point streak to eight games (four goals, 15 assists for 19 points).
“I am proud of that group in there to be able to overcome all of the adversity that we’ve had this year, whether that was self-inflicted by us,” St. Louis coach Jim Montgomery said. “It doesn’t matter. We’ve overcome it. I’m proud of that group for what they’ve achieved.”
The Jets (52-21-4, 108 points) have won four of six after losing 4-1 to the Utah Hockey Club in Salt Lake City on Saturday.
“It’s just not the effort we wanted,” Winnipeg forward Cole Perfetti said. “We know they come out of the gates pretty hot, they’ve shown it all year that they’re a good first-period team. We knew that going in and we just weren’t ready. We talked about it this morning, they’re a good rush team, a good transition team and we kind of fed into it early. They made plays and we kind of were on our heels. And then they took it to us in the first period there.”
Utah led 1-0 after the first period and scored twice more in the second for a 3-0 advantage after 40 minutes.
Mark Scheifele scored the Jets’ lone goal and Connor Hellebuyck made 24 saves.
“Yeah, for sure it is (a missed opportunity),” Winnipeg coach Scott Arniel said. “But you know what, we’ve talked about it for the last three, four weeks; we’re not waiting for some other team to beat Dallas (who are in second place, chasing the Central Division-leading Jets). We can’t sit and do that. We have to go and take care of our business.
“If we’re going to win this division, win it by winning hockey games.”
Scheifele’s goal was his 38th of the season and 800th NHL point.
“(It’s) obviously cool, but obviously it would have been better in a win,” Scheifele said.
–Field Level Media
