ST. LOUIS — Ivan Barbashev had a goal and two assists, and Brayden Schenn scored twice for the St. Louis Blues in a 6-2 win against the Florida Panthers at Enterprise Center on Tuesday.
Jordan Kyrou had a goal and an assist, and Robert Thomas had two assists for the Blues (25-25-3), who have won two straight after losing five in a row. Jordan Binnington made 34 saves, including 17 in the third period.
“I thought we got contributions from a lot of guys,” St. Louis coach Craig Berube said. “I think we played a pretty solid game all around, goaltender out. I liked our forecheck and the aggressiveness of it. We did some real good things in the offensive zone again, a lot of time in the offensive zone.
“Other than a little bit in the third period, we were in our zone a little bit too much, and we just didn’t make plays and we kind of let them have the puck back a few times. But other than that, I thought that we won the game inside the dots tonight.”
Carter Verhaeghe had a goal and an assist, Matthew Tkachuk had two assists, and Spencer Knight made 22 saves in his first game since Jan. 8 for the Panthers (27-24-6), who had won four of five following a 2-1 shootout victory at the Minnesota Wild on Monday.
“We were getting our looks,” Verhaeghe said. “I think we were just giving them a ton of looks off the rush and weren’t at our best tonight. It’s a little frustrating, but [Binnington] played well too.
“We want to win every game, but we know it’s not possible. We just want to keep building our game and trying to get better every night, and I think we’re on the right track, but tonight wasn’t our best.”
Schenn gave the Blues a 1-0 lead at 11:27 of the first period on the power play after a wrist shot from defenseman Torey Krug from the point tipped Schenn in front, caromed off the back boards and off the back of Knight’s left skate into the net.
“I got a tip on it,” Schenn said. “Through 82 games, you need some goals like that every once in a while. Not pretty by any means, but I’ll take it.”
Schenn made it 2-0 with his second goal 35 seconds into the second period. He scored on a 3-on-1 rush that he kept and shot low glove on Knight after Kyrou intercepted a puck in the defensive zone to spring the odd-man rush.
Nick Leddy made it 3-0 at 12:51 on an end-to-end rush, finishing a shot from the left circle with a wrist shot high glove side in his 900th NHL game.
“Just trying to create some offense when I can and use my feet, try and create plays off that,” Leddy said. “I think for me it was a special night, just adding to the game was important.”
St. Louis had a goal called back when Justin Faulk scored at 15:07, but Florida challenged for a high stick on a puck before the goal, and it was determined that Thomas played Knight’s clear around the boards with a high stick at 14:50.
Eetu Luostarinen cut it to 3-1 at 18:44, finishing off a Tkachuk pass in front.
Ryan O’Reilly and Kyrou scored 20 seconds apart in the third period, with O’Reilly extending it to 4-1 at 9:28 on a backdoor tap-in before Kyrou made it 5-1 at 9:48 on another.
Verhaeghe made it 5-2 at 13:28 on a wrist shot from the high slot high glove side.
“I don’t want to look for an excuse for us to lose the game because we had some momentum, we had some good chances,” Panthers defenseman Radko Gudas said. “We had good chances to come back; I believed in our group all the way until the end. I thought the first two periods we had Grade-A chances that I thought if we could have buried, the game could have gone differently.”
Barbashev scored into an empty net at 17:12 for the 6-2 final.
NOTES: Krug and forward Brandon Saad each left the game for the Blues in the second period with an upper-body injury; Berube said they would be reevaluated Wednesday. … Kyrou has nine points (four goals, five assists) over the past eight games. … Leddy has 375 points (70 goals, 305 assists) in his NHL career. … Tkachuk has 20 points (four goals, 16 assists) in 16 games against St. Louis, his hometown; Panthers defenseman Aaron Ekblad played his 600th NHL game. … The Blues’ penalty kill, after going 2-for-2 Tuesday, is 13-for-13 the past four games against Florida.
