Hofer gets 4th shutout, Blues top Hurricanes to stop slide

ST. LOUIS -- Joel Hofer made 33 saves for his fourth shutout of the season, and the St. Louis Blues defeated the Carolina Hurricanes 3-0 at Enterprise Center on Tuesday.

Hofer is tied for the NHL shutouts lead with Ilya Sorokin of the New York Islanders and Jesper Wallstedt of the Minnesota Wild. He said there was an emphasis on playing in front of Blues alumni the night after Alexander Steen, Barret Jackman and Al Arbour were inducted into the team’s Hall of Fame.

“It was very important to us,” Hofer said. “Lots of us went to the ceremony last night. Those guys do a great job and obviously [are] great role models for all of us. It was huge for us to get a win for them tonight.”

Nick Bjugstad, Jimmy Snuggerud and Dalibor Dvorsky scored for the Blues (18-21-8), who had lost three straight.

“I thought tonight was the smartest game we’ve played as far as playing a simple but very effective game,” St. Louis coach Jim Montgomery said. “Making them turn, being really reliant on our forecheck and playing fast, and I thought the little details and habits within our game, blocked shots, net front block-outs, were the best they’ve been all year.”

Brandon Bussi made 28 saves for the Hurricanes (28-15-4), whose five-game point streak (4-0-1) ended. Carolina, which was shut out for the first time this season, lost 4-3 in overtime at the Detroit Red Wings on Monday.

“Obviously not great,” Hurricanes captain Jordan Staal said. “I think we were hoping for an easy one and it seemed like we were hoping for an outscoring them, we’re going to get a few chances, we’ll give them a couple and we’ll see what happens kind of game. We weren’t really ready to play that forechecking game, play the stress game we’ve been talking about and it looks like that. There wasn’t a whole lot of spark from anyone throughout the lineup, so it wasn’t pretty.”

Bjugstad, who returned after missing 15 games with an upper-body injury, scored a short-handed goal to make it 1-0 at 3:09 of the second period. Bjugstad kept the puck on the rush and put a wrist shot from the right face-off circle into the top left corner.

“I knew it was a 3-on-1, kind of last second, so the goalie had to respect that,” Bjugstad said. “… It’s nice when you get a little time to shoot the puck.”

Dvorsky made it 2-0 at 9:45 to finish off a sharp passing sequence by the Blues after Jordan Kyrou intercepted the puck in the defensive zone. Tyler Tucker fed Jake Neighbours down low on the left side, and Neighbours found Dvorsky in the low slot for the finish.

“It was obvious right from the start, we had no life,” Hurricanes coach Rod Brind’Amour said. “You could just see how we were turning pucks over. It’s not how we play and they capitalized. They played a good game, structured, how they’re supposed to, and we were trying to do other things and it never works.”

Snuggerud’s power-play goal made it 3-0 at 12:49. After St. Louis center Brayden Schenn blocked a shot, Kyrou again started an odd-man rush and dropped a pass to Snuggerud, who beat Bussi with a wrist shot from the right circle over the glove.

“I tried to check the back side to see if ‘Jakey’ was there,” Snuggerud said, “because obviously it was a high odd-man rush. Obviously I ended up ripping it.”

Carolina, which rallied from a 3-0 third-period deficit on Monday before losing in overtime, was held in check Tuesday.

“Obviously we know they’re a high-shot volume team,” Hofer said. “The first couple of minutes, you could obviously tell they were shooting everything. Our D-men did a great job boxing out and making sure I saw the shots.”

NOTES: Hurricanes defenseman Jaccob Slavin was scratched due to injury rehab protocol; he played the previous two games Saturday and Monday after missing 10 games with an upper-body injury. … Carolina had scored at least three goals in each of its previous seven games. … The Blues announced during the game that they signed defenseman Logan Mailloux to a one-year, $850,000 contract for next season. The 22-year-old, who had one shot on goal in 14:55 of ice time Tuesday, has two points (one goal, one assist) in 32 games this season. Selected by the Montreal Canadiens in the first round (No. 31) of the 2021 NHL Draft, Mailloux has seven points (three goals, four assists) in 39 NHL games with St. Louis and Montreal.