Hofer makes 41 saves, Blues hold off Senators

OTTAWA -- Joel Hofer made 41 saves, and the St. Louis Blues held on to defeat the Ottawa Senators 2-1 at Canadian Tire Centre on Saturday.

“Can’t say enough about him. He was fantastic,” Blues coach Jim Montgomery said of Hofer. “There were screen shots that, from the bench, we were like, ‘He doesn’t see it,’ and man, he’d just come over with the shoulder. He was seeing the puck at a level that was unbelievable.”

Hofer made 16 saves in the third period, including a point-blank stop on Tim Stutzle with nine seconds remaining to preserve the lead.

“Just his tracking of the puck,” St. Louis forward Jake Neighbours said. “There was a couple in the third period there that I have no idea how he saw it. You know, they had Brady Tkachuk standing there pretty much the whole third and guys were just sifting pucks in and he was getting his hands on it. I don’t know how.”

Neighbours scored twice for the Blues (10-12-7), who defeated the Senators for the second time in eight days (also 4-3 at Enterprise Center on Nov. 28).

“He made some great saves,” St. Louis center Pius Suter said of Hofer. “He was very present, had all of the rebounds, especially at the end. Their plan was just to throw pucks on net and create chaos, and he kind of kept calm. We tried to box out as good as we can and he had the other stuff.”

Fabian Zetterlund scored, and Linus Ullmark made 18 saves for Ottawa (13-11-4), which has lost four of its past five games.

“Not a lot of success right now,” said Tkachuk, the Senators captain, “but in the grand scheme of things, there’s tons of learning opportunities about this game and throughout this whole stretch. I know we’ll be fine and we’ll be good. We’ve just got to get out of it.”

Ottawa outshot St. Louis 15-2 in the first period.

“I felt good,” Hofer said. “Got into the action early. We got into some penalty troubles early and the PK showed up big.”

The Senators were 0-for-4 in on the power play in the period and 1-for-7 for the game.

“They’re just not getting the job done,” Ottawa coach Travis Green said of his power play. “They’re on the outside a lot, the execution hasn’t been good enough either.”

Neighbours put the Blues ahead 1-0 at 17:36 of the second period, four seconds after a St. Louis power play expired. Brayden Schenn’s one-timer hit the right post, but Neighbours batted the puck out of the air on a drive into the crease. It was his first goal since Oct. 25; he missed 12 games with a right-leg injury.

“I try not to be a result-oriented person,” Neighbours said, “but I was scoring a lot before I went out and kind of came out and haven’t thought my game has been up to par and up to my standard, the way the team needs me. It felt good to get a couple for them tonight.”

Neighbours scored his second goal of the game 12 seconds into the third to give St. Louis a 2-0 lead. He tapped in a centering pass from Pavel Buchnevich at the edge of the crease.

“He’s got a great nose for the net,” Montgomery said of Neighbours. “Both of those goals is a guy that scores in and around the blue paint. It was great to have that line [of Neighbours, Buchnevich and Robert Thomas] contribute [at] 5-on-5 like they did.”

Zetterlund cut it to 2-1 at 15:39, one-timing a quick pass from Stephen Halliday in the low slot past a sprawling Hofer on the Senators’ seventh power play.

“I think we had a decent game, but we’ve got to make it harder for the goalie,” Zetterlund said. “I mean, we shoot a lot of pucks, but sometimes we don’t have a netfront presence. We need that in this league.”

Ullmark, who was headed off the ice for the extra attacker, dove back into the slot to make a desperation stick save on Thomas with the net empty at 18:07.

“We had more than enough chances to tie the game,” Ottawa defenseman Jake Sanderson said, “and, matter of fact, win the game, too.

NOTES: Blues forward Jordan Kyrou left the game at 2:52 of the first period with a lower-body injury after taking a hit from Halliday. Montgomery said Kyrou is day to day, “doing OK” and will be out a week to 10 days. Kyrou will be reevaluated after getting an MRI back in St. Louis. … The Senators allowed the first goal of the game for the 18th time this season (6-10-2), tied for the most in the NHL.