Robert Thomas scored twice as the St. Louis Blues routed the visiting New York Rangers 6-2 Thursday to snap their four-game winless streak.
Ivan Barbashev, Ryan O’Reilly, David Perron and Jake Walman also scored for the Blues and Jordan Kyrou had two assists. Ville Husso made 27 saves to earn the victory.
Ryan Strome and K’Andre Miller scored for the Rangers and Adam Fox had two assists.
Losing goaltender Igor Shesterkin allowed four goals on 17 shots before Alexandar Georgiev replaced him 15 seconds in the second period.
The Blues outshot the Rangers 16-11 in the first period while taking a 3-1 lead.
First they scored on a three-man rush, capped by a give-and-go play between Kyrou and Thomas at the 13:05 mark. Just 45 seconds later Barbashev converted Brandon Saad’s centering pass with a point-blank shot.
Less than 2 minutes after that, Thomas took Kyrou’s pass from the right circle and scored from the slot to boost the lead to 3-0.
The Rangers scored a power-play goal to cut their deficit to 3-1 with 1:23 left in the period. Fox raced up the right wing and set up Strome’s goal from the left circle.
But the Blues resumed their onslaught in the second period. O’Reilly chased Shesterkin 15 seconds off of an aggressive forecheck. David Perron stole the puck in the left corner, then Brayden Schenn fed O’Reilly — who put the Blues up 4-1.
With the Blues playing with six attackers on a delayed Rangers penalty, the Blues sustained offensive zone pressure before Walman scored from the right circle to increase the lead to 5-1.
Perron spun high in the left circle and took a low shot that deflected by Georgiev to make it 6-1.
The Rangers cut the lead to 6-2 with another power-play goal, this time with Miller breaking in from the blue line to tap in Artemi Panarin’s pass toward the left post.
–Field Level Media
