Justin Faulk picked up a goal and an assist and Robert Thomas earned three assists to lead the St. Louis Blues past the visiting Nashville Predators 4-1 on Sunday for their sixth straight victory.
Jordan Kyrou, Alexandre Texier and Brayden Schenn added goals for the Blues (37-28-7, 81 points). Jake Neighbours had two assists and Jordan Binnington made 31 saves.
The Blues have gone 13-2-2 in their last 17 games to climb into the second wild-card spot in the Western Conference playoff race.
Filip Forsberg scored for the Predators (26-36-8, 60 points), who are 1-4-1 in their last six games. Justus Annunen made 14 saves.
The Blues caught the Predators in the middle of a line change to take a 1-0 lead 12:13 into the game. Neighbours pushed the puck up right wing and fed Thomas, who was coming down the middle off the rush.
Thomas dropped a pass to Kyrou, who snapped a quick shot through Annunen. It was Kyrou’s team-leading 30th goal of the season, and his sixth in his last six games.
St. Louis stayed on the attack and got two point-blank opportunities during a goal-mouth scramble.
Then the Blues upped their lead to 2-0 with a power-play goal, with Texier scoring from the left flank off Thomas’ pass.
The Predators cut their deficit to 2-1 with a power-goal 64 seconds into the second period. Forsberg cut through the right circle and fired a shot through the legs of Blues defenseman Ryan Suter and past the screened Binnington.
Forsberg, who has 28 goals for the season, has three goals and three assists in his last four games.
Thomas punched in a loose puck just moments into the third period, but the play had been whistled dead.
Faulk increased the Blues’ lead to 3-1 with 9:30 to play by jumping up on right wing on the rush and firing a shot into the upper-left corner of the net.
Schenn’s empty-net goal with 38 seconds left iced the game.
–Field Level Media
