ST. LOUIS — Ville Husso made 28 saves for the St. Louis Blues in a 5-1 win against the Calgary Flames at Enterprise Center on Thursday.
Husso is 6-0-0 with a 1.11 goals-against average and .965 save percentage in seven games (six starts) in January.
“[Husso’s] been huge for us, especially as of late,” Blues forward Brandon Saad said. “I haven’t seen a better goalie in the League lately. He’s been great back there. I think when you have that, you’re going to have confidence. Obviously, we don’t want to give up too many chances, but when he can do that for us, it helps us transition.”
Saad had two goals and an assist, and Brayden Schenn had a goal and an assist for the Blues (26-12-5), who are 14-1-1 in their past 16 home games.
St. Louis lost 7-1 at Calgary on Monday.
“The difference between the two games, I think we went to Calgary and thought it was going to be a little bit easier,” Schenn said. “Not easy, we turned over the puck. We didn’t have our skating legs. We chased it the whole night, it just kept on snowballing on us. And tonight, I think we had a good mindset to get the puck deep. We knew they were on a back-to-back, and just try and play heavy and hard, which we did tonight. And obviously, Husso was great again for us.”
Mikael Backlund scored for the Flames (20-13-6), who had won two straight. Jacob Markstrom made 23 saves after he earned his League-leading sixth shutout in a 6-0 win at the Columbus Blue Jackets on Wednesday.
Calgary set a team record with 62 shots on goal against Columbus.
“I don’t think many teams want to give up 60-plus shots,” Flames forward Matthew Tkachuk said. “To me, I don’t pay too much attention to shots. We can’t be a one-dimensional team. St. Louis gave us nothing. They weren’t happy with how they played last time. We have to be more desperate than we were tonight.”
Saad gave the Blues a 1-0 lead at 6:15 of the first period when he beat Markstrom glove side with a wrist shot from the left circle.
Backlund tied it 1-1 at 10:34, scoring from a sharp angle following a turnover by Ivan Barbashev.
Schenn put the Blues back in front 2-1 at 13:59 when he caught Markstrom leaning and beat him short side on a 2-on-1.
Saad made it 3-1 at 9:57 of the second period, getting off a quick shot from near the right hash marks after Adam Ruzicka blindly tried to clear the puck behind the Flames net.
“Individual mistakes cost us goals against,” Calgary coach Darryl Sutter said. “It’s not always just about scoring goals. We had some chances to score and we didn’t. You give up three goals going into the third period, you don’t win many hockey games.
“That’s a veteran, good hockey club. They had a one-off in Calgary. They’re on a pace for something like 110, 115 points this season. You make mistakes, they’ll make you play.”
Jordan Kyrou extended the lead to 4-1 at 4:10 of the third period when he received a pass from Robert Thomas and waited out Markstrom before shooting into an open net.
Ryan O’Reilly scored a power-play goal at 18:59 for the 5-1 final.
NOTES: Tkachuk and Johnny Gaudreau each had a six-game point streak end. … Blues center Tyler Bozak played in his 800th NHL game. He is one of three active players who were undrafted to reach the milestone, joining Mark Giordano of the Seattle Kraken and Andy Greene of the New York Islanders. … Kyrou has scored 17 points (eight goals, nine assists) in his past 12 games.
