Capitals shut out by Blues, lose ground in wild-card race

ST. LOUIS – Joel Hofer made 21 saves for his sixth shutout of the season, and the St. Louis Blues defeated the Washington Capitals 3-0 at Enterprise Center on Tuesday.

Hofer is one away from tying New York Islanders goalie Ilya Sorokin, who has seven shutouts, for the NHL lead this season.

“It means that guys are playing hard in front of me,” Hofer said. “It’s a testament to them. They didn’t give up much tonight, keeping them to the outside. They do a great job for sure.”

Jordan Kyrou, Jimmy Snuggerud and Otto Stenberg scored for the Blues (29-30-11), who are 8-1-2 in their past 11 games. St. Louis is eight points behind the Nashville Predators for the second wild card into the Stanley Cup Playoffs from the Western Conference.

“I thought we managed the puck really well," Blues coach Jim Montgomery said. "I didn’t think by any means we were dynamic, but we were really smart and were always above pucks. I don’t think we gave up many odd-man rushes, if at all. I thought the desperation in our game defensively, we took away time and space really well.”

Logan Thompson made 24 saves for the Capitals (35-28-9), who had a five-game point streak end (3-0-2) and are six points outside of the second wild card in the Eastern Conference.

“Our puck play was not good for the majority of the night,” Washington coach Spencer Carbery said. “We just could not execute. Any time there was a glimmer of hope, you saw, whether it was an odd-man rush in the first period or an O-zone sequence where some guys are open, and we just couldn’t connect on plays whatsoever tonight. That’s why it leaves our expected goals tonight around 1.1, which isn’t good enough. We just have to do a better job with the puck, we’ve got to do a better job creating opportunities, creating high danger looks, creating secondary (chances), getting to the net, attacking the net, getting shots through, connecting on passes. We just have to do a better job.”

After a scoreless first period, Snuggerud’s one-timer from the left circle gave St. Louis a 1-0 lead at 2:39 of the second when the forward took a cross-seam pass from Logan Mailloux and beat Thompson at the near post.

“I saw the seam was kind of there, and I saw (Mailloux’s) eyes kind of catch a piece of me,” Snuggerud said. “Just tried to find that seam and call for it, and it was an unbelievable play by him.”

Stenberg pushed it to 2-0 at 14:52 of the third period. Jonatan Berggren came off the right wall to find Dalibor Dvorsky with a cross-ice, seam pass to the back post, and Dvorsky found Stenberg cross-crease for the finish at the right side.

“First of all, good pass from ‘Bergy’ to ‘Dvo,’” Stenberg said. “I just stayed on the backdoor and ‘Dvo’ found me. It was good, just tap it in.”

Kyrou scored into an empty net at 19:19 for the 3-0 final.

Hofer’s best save came just five seconds into the second period when he was able to close and get over on Washington forward Tom Wilson’s snap shot from the inner left circle that knocked his helmet off.

“It was tough for us to get things going offensively tonight,” Capitals defenseman Matt Roy said. “Credit to them, they played hard and their goalie made some good plays, and that stopped our momentum a bit. We’ve just got to move past it.”

Blues center Robert Thomas was helped off the ice by athletic training staff with 11:35 left in the third period after he was tackled to the ground by Washington forward Pierre-Luc Dubois, who was assessed a major and match penalty for intent to injure.

Montgomery said Thomas was fine after the game.

“He passed the protocol,” Montgomery said. “He’s healthy.”

NOTES: Hofer is 6-0-2 with a 1.34 goals-against average and .959 save percentage since Feb. 26. … Snuggerud has 12 points (six goals, six assists) in his past nine games. … Washington’s penalty kill was 3-for-3 and has now killed 21 straight dating to March 7 against the Boston Bruins. … Mailloux played 20:51, marking the 12th straight game the rookie defenseman has eclipsed 20 or more minutes in a game.