Buchnevich scores twice for Blues in win against Panthers

SUNRISE, Fla. — Pavel Buchnevich had two goals and an assist, and Joel Hofer made an NHL career-high 37 saves for the St. Louis Blues in a 4-1 win against the Florida Panthers at Amerant Bank Arena on Thursday.

Jordan Kyrou had a goal and an assist, and Robert Thomas had three assists for the Blues (16-15-1), who are 3-1-0 with Drew Bannister as coach.

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St. Louis lost 6-1 at the Tampa Bay Lightning on Tuesday.

“This is the response I expected,” Bannister said. “That is a character team in there. I know they have gone through some tough spells here in the last little while, but they dug in here tonight.”

Eetu Luostarinen scored for the Panthers (18-12-2), who have lost four of their past five games. Sergei Bobrovsky made 20 saves.

Florida has been outscored 15-2 in the four losses.

“This is a really good example of why you can’t play a rush game, because you don’t have to give up a lot of chances,” Panthers coach Paul Maurice said. “We gave up five, and they scored on three of them. I am not looking at Sergei Bobrovsky on any of them. … Did they have a lot of chances? No, but the ones they did have were so big.”

Kyrou gave the Blues a 1-0 lead at 4:50 of the second period at the edge of the left face-off circle after a feed from behind the net by Thomas.

Buchnevich had a goal disallowed just 23 seconds later at 5:13 after video review determined the Blues were offside, but he made it 2-0 at 7:46 when he took a pass from Kyrou and roofed a backhand over Bobrovsky.

Luostarinen cut it to 2-1 at 13:47 when his shot from 98 feet away near center ice deflected off the glass and went into an empty net after Hofer thought it was going around the boards.

“Just a weird bounce,” Luostarinen said. “Every goal counts. … I think you see weird bounces all the time in hockey. I was not sure it counted.”

Hofer was able to smile about it afterward.

“That curved glass got me,” he said. “It’s all good. We got the win.”

Alexey Toropchenko gave St. Louis a 3-1 lead at 16:43, redirecting a wrist shot from Marco Scandella at the point that found its way through traffic.

Panthers forward Ryan Lomberg had a goal disallowed at 2:30 of the third period after video review confirmed his stick was above the crossbar.

Buchnevich scored an empty-net goal at 16:51 for the 4-1 final.

“Overall, it was a great response for our group,” Kyrou said. “We came out and had a strong start, and that is what we wanted to do after a slow start against Tampa.”

The line of Buchnevich, Thomas and Kyrou combined for eight points (three goals, five assists).

“It was fun to watch,” said Hofer, who made 12 saves in the third. “They were real good tonight and when they are going, we are really hard to play against. They were great.”

NOTES: It was the sixth time Thomas had three assists in an NHL game. … Blues defenseman Colton Parayko blocked six shots in 24:16 of ice time. … Panthers forwards Matthew Tkachuk and Aleksander Barkov, and defenseman Brandon Montour were each minus-3. Barkov won 14 of 17 face-offs (82.4 percent). … Florida forward Carter Verhaeghe had seven shots on goal.