Blues recover in shootout, end Lightning's 11-game winning streak

ST. LOUIS -- Joel Hofer made 34 saves, and the St. Louis Blues ended the Tampa Bay Lightning's franchise-tying, 11-game winning streak with a 3-2 shootout win at Enterprise Center on Friday.

Jordan Kyrou scored the lone shootout goal in the second round, and Hofer made all three saves to seal the win.

"It feels great," Kyrou said. "Obviously, we haven’t done that all year. It feels good to get that one."

The win marked the Blues first in overtime or the shootout, as St. Louis had been 0-8 after regulation.

“You want those battles,” Hofer said of his final save on Nikita Kucherov's wrist shot in the third round of the shootout. “Luckily, it went my way. ... I don't think I've been very successful in shootouts before. It was nice to get a win, actually."

Jake Neighbours and Nick Bjugstad scored for the Blues (19-21-8), who have won two straight after losing three in a row.

“It’s nice to get that win,” St. Louis coach Jim Montgomery said. “Again, against a really good team, and I like the way we’re competing. We’re staying with games.”

Kucherov had a goal and an assist, Oliver Bjorkstrand scored, while Darren Raddysh had two assists and Andrei Vasilevskiy made 19 saves for the Lightning (29-13-4), who had previously won 11 consecutive games to tie the franchise record originally set in 2020 (Jan. 29-Feb. 17). The loss marked Tampa Bay's first of 2026, with the club last losing 2-1 to the Los Angeles Kings on Dec. 18, 2025.

“We’ve put ourselves in position to win the past 12 games, and for 11 straight of them, we did,” Tampa Bay coach Jon Cooper said. “Tonight we had ample opportunities to pull this one out. A puck bounce here, a big save, but I liked our game, and we’ll look at the tape. Probably a little frustrated in the two goals we gave up. We broke down in just a little instance, but you’re down two on the road and you come back and get at least one point, so I’m pretty proud of the guys.

"... We've put ourselves in a pretty darn good spot. This is a full month of road games for us, so the fact that we keep getting points, it'll bode well for us later in the season. If we keep getting points out of every game, we'll be in a good spot."

Neighbours made it 1-0 at 17:03 of the first period when he collected Kyrou’s deflected shot at the bottom of the right circle and beat Vasilevskiy over the left pad with a wrist shot.

Just 30 seconds later, Bjugstad pushed it 2-0 at 17:33. Pavel Buchnevich found Bjugstad in the high slot for a wrist shot after the Blues forechecked a puck below the goal line along the end boards.

“Part of the way our defense and our systems are built is if teams are keeping the puck, that we can keep them to the outside and not allow a lot of high-danger chances,” Neighbours said. “I thought we did a pretty good job of that, especially early in the first period, kind of allowed us to get our legs under us a little bit. Obviously getting a couple goals at the end of the first was big for confidence and mojo going into the second.”

Hagel's no-look pass set Kucherov up for a one-timer from the right circle at 9:59, cutting the Blues lead to 2-1 and taking just eight seconds of a two-man advantage.

Bjorkstrand tied it 2-2 at 11:01 with a power-play goal when he took Kucherov’s pass in the bumper position and whipped a wrist shot over Hofer’s left shoulder.

“The power play, we got the two goals and that was positive,” Bjorkstrand said. “Other than that, we played some good hockey throughout the game. In the end, we just couldn’t get it done, so we can work on that, but we can take some things from it.”

NOTES: Kucherov has 27 points (11 goals, 16 assists) during the Lightning’s 12-game point streak and 23 points (eight goals, 15 assists) in 20 games against St. Louis. … Blues defenseman Philip Broberg played 25:15 and was a plus-2 after missing a game while in concussion protocol. … Tampa Bay has an 11-game road point streak (9-0-2). … Raddysh has 14 points (four goals, 10 assists) in the past eight games.