RALEIGH, N.C. — The Blues are proving they can play with some of the league’s best teams.
They’re showing they can beat them, too.
Two nights after beating Western Conference-leading Vancouver, the Blues beat perennial Eastern Conference threat Carolina 2-1 in a shootout. Brayden Schenn scored the deciding goal in the fifth round of the shootout.
Forward Nathan Walker scored his first goal of the season for the Blues, and goaltender Jordan Binnington submitted another strong start since returning from the Christmas break. He made 29 savest, including 13 in the second period .
Teuvo Teravainen scored a power-play goal for Carolina in the first period. Dmitry Orlov nearly won the game for the Hurricanes midway through the third but his slap shot rang off the crossbar, and Andrei Svechnikov narrowly missed a chance on the backdoor with an open net a few minutes later.
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The Blues’ Colton Parayko created a chance all by himself with just over a minute to go in the third period, and his wraparound attempt was stopped by Antti Raanta, and Brandon Saad almost stuffed the game-winner in overtime.
The Blues now are more than halfway through an eight-game stretch of games against teams that either entered the season as Cup contenders or have played that way this season. They beat Dallas and Vancouver, lost to Colorado and Pittsburgh.
After playing Carolina on Saturday night, the Blues return home to host Florida, the Rangers and Boston.
Welcome back Walker
In his second game back in the NHL after spending the first 2½ months with AHL affiliate Springfield, Walker announced his return with a first-period goal that gave the Blues a 1-0 lead 11 minutes into the first period.
Walker was the beneficiary of an error in judgment by Hurricanes defenseman Dmitry Orlov, who misread Oskar Sundqvist’s high flip from the Blues zone, cheated up in the neutral zone to glove it, but instead watched as the too-high puck sailed over his head. Walker collected the puck around the tops of the circles, then slotted a shot through Antti Raanta’s legs.
It was Walker’s first NHL goal since March 19, but his production in the AHL was part of the reason why he was recalled to ºüÀêÊÓƵ. Walker had 29 points in 30 games for Springfield on its top line.
Walker’s tally was the Blues’ only goal in the first period, even with two prime chances earlier. In the first six seconds of the game, Jordan Kyrou set up Pavel Buchnevich with an open shot in the low slot, but it was blocked by Carolina defenseman Brett Pesce. Kevin Hayes nearly scored by shoveling a backhand wide of the post after Raanta spit back a Jakub Vrana shot.
Carolina tied the game 1-1 when Teuvo Teravainen scored on the power play with 6:43 left in the first period. Jack Drury won a faceoff against Robert Thomas, setting up Teravainen with an open shot from the slot, as Marco Scandella partially screened Jordan Binnington.
The Blues were coming off a game in which they won 68.1% of faceoffs, and the Hurricanes ranked in the top 10 in faceoff percentage entering the game.
“That was a big part of the success we had against Vancouver, starting with the puck,†Blues interim coach Drew Bannister said before the game. “We struggled with it in Pittsburgh, obviously they’re a real good faceoff team. They’re No. 1 in the league. We were able to bear down. We won some edge battles. That’s going to be important for us here tonight.â€
Keeping the Blues in it
In a scoreless second period, Binnington was the hero for ºüÀêÊÓƵ.
He stopped all 13 shots he faced to help the Blues escape a lopsided second period in which Carolina outshot the Blues 13-7. At five on five, the Hurricanes had 24 shot attempts compared to 14 by the Blues.
Binnington stood on his head by making two quick saves on Seth Jarvis from the slot about five minutes into the period. He stopped a Staal on a backhand a couple minutes later. Binnington came under fire after a Blues power play, when the Hurricanes hemmed ºüÀêÊÓƵ in its own end with nine shot attempts in the 70 seconds after Staal exited the penalty box for his hooking penalty.
During that power play, the Blues did not have a shot attempt, and could not cleanly enter the zone against the Hurricanes.
In his two games since Christmas and before Saturday night, Binnington stopped 46 of 49 shots (.939 save percentage) to go with a 1.51 goals against average.