ST. LOUIS (AP) — Pavel Buchnevich and Ivan Barbashev each scored twice and the St. Louis Blues beat the Columbus Blue Jackets 6-3 Saturday night.
Justin Faulk and Jordan Kyrou also scored, and Vladimir Tarasenko added three assists as St. Louis won for the third time in 10 games. Ville Husso made 24 saves for his third win in four starts.
“We had conversations with players and with Chief (Berube),” St. Louis winger Vladimir Tarasenko said of Blues coach Craig Berube’s first intermission pep talk. “ We can’t start like this, especially at home. Last few games, like, we lose one, win one. We should be more consistent. And that’s what we were talking about.”
“Well, we needed something,” Berube said of his speech “In the first period, we got clearly outskated in the period. Coming out, this game at home, we can’t start like that.”
Adam Boqvist scored twice and Boone Jenner also had a goal for the Blue Jackets, who had their three-game winning streak halted.
“If we’re going to win against St. Louis, we’ve got to play better overall for 60 minutes,” Boqvist said. “I think this was one of the worst games of the year for us.”
Joonas Korpisalo stopped 27 of 33 shots and lost for the fourth time in seven starts this season.
After Jenner scored his 10th goal of the season on a power play with 7:22 remaining in the first period, St. Louis then scored three goals in the second period.
Buchnevich tied the game 1-1 when he pushed a cross-crease feed from Vladimir Tarasenko past Korpisalo 58 seconds into the second. Less than a minute later, Barbashev tapped in the rebound of a shot by Oskar Sundqvist to put St. Louis up 2-1.
Kyrou netted his team-leading ninth goal of the season with 6:48 remaining in the second period to increase the St. Louis lead to 3-1.
“We’ve been having a tough time the last couple games,” Barbashev said. “I think it was time to turn around things and play simple, hard, and that’s what we did in the second, and it looks like the game turned around.”
Boqvist scored his third goal of the season in the third period with three seconds remaining on an unsportsmanlike conduct penalty on Justin Faulk to narrow its deficit to 3-2.
Faulk answered by scoring his fourth goal of the season 5:42 in the third, putting St. Louis up 4-2.
“They’re a good hockey team,” Blue Jackets coach Brad Larsen said of St. Louis. “They’re a big, heavy team, and they got rolling there, and we didn’t have an answer for them. Then we made some bad mistakes, and it cost us. Got 4-2, 5-2 and that was it.”
Buchnevich scored his eighth of the season, and Barbashev his seventh in the third period to add insurance.
FOES REUNITED:
Columbus and St. Louis faced each other for the first time since the Blue Jackets beat the Blues 3-2 in overtime on Nov. 15, 2019, in Columbus. During the pandemic-shortened season, Columbus competed in the Central Division and St. Louis was placed in the West Division.
BLACK AND BLUE:
St. Louis placed LW James Neal on injured reserve with an upper body injury and recalled C Dakota Joshua from Springfield of the AHL. … St. Louis dressed 11 forwards and seven defensemen as RW David Perron, LW Klim Kostin were scratched with upper body injuries.
UP NEXT:
Blue Jackets: At Nashville on Tuesday night.
Blues: Host Tampa Bay on Tuesday night.
