Binnington gets second straight shutout for Blues in win against Coyotes

ST. LOUIS -- Jordan Binnington made 14 saves for his second consecutive shutout for the St. Louis Blues in a 1-0 win against the Arizona Coyotes at Enterprise Center on Thursday.

Binnington made 17 saves in a 3-0 win against the New Jersey Devils on Tuesday. He has a shutout streak of 122:11 dating to the third period against the Nashville Predators on Sunday.
"We'll take it," Binnington said. "Team's playing great and we'll build off that.
"We were dominating pretty consistently that game. Another full 60 minutes and being relentless and being hungry to get that first goal and working for that next one. It was a good mindset and it was a big two points for us."
WATCH: [All Coyotes vs. Blues highlights]
Ryan O'Reilly scored for the Blues (34-17-10), who are two points ahead of the Dallas Stars for first place in the Central Division.
Marco Scandella had three hits in 19:24 in his Blues debut. The defenseman was acquired in a trade with the Montreal Canadiens on Tuesday.
"It was a lot of fun out there," Scandella said. "I feel like the crowd was into it too. Playing a home game is a lot easier to start off and I felt like we played the right way, so it was just a great game for us."
Antti Raanta made 45 saves for the Coyotes (30-26-8), who are tied with the Calgary Flames for the second wild card into the Stanley Cup Playoffs from the Western Conference.
"We had no juice tonight. It just hit us. A lot of games," Coyotes coach Rick Tocchet said. "You could just tell some guys were really tired. We hung in there. Raanta was unreal tonight. He gave us a chance. That's basically the story. He was the star for us. We had no juice at all."

O'Reilly scored his 11th goal of the season at 12:00 of the third period on a backhand from the slot.
The Blues had a continuous cycle going in the Coyotes zone, and Brayden Schenn slotted a pass to O'Reilly. Raanta got a piece of O'Reilly's backhand, but it caromed off the post, back off Raanta's arm and into the net.
"It's kind of weird with all the shots we threw at them that that was the one that went in," O'Reilly said. "Kind of a lucky bounce. I just tried to elevate it and it rolled over his shoulder, hit the post, hit his back and then in. It was kind of the bounce we needed. We did a lot of things well tonight against a tired team."
The Blues outshot the Coyotes 19-4 in the second period and had a power-play goal by David Perron overturned at 9:55 when video review determined Perron was offside.
St. Louis outshot Arizona 18-2 in the third period and 37-6 over the final 40 minutes.
"Obviously it was very tough to generate any offense tonight," Coyotes forward Christian Dvorak said. "Raanta was very good for us. We could have gotten run out of the building, so it was a great game by him. We just couldn't get anything going."

They said it

"It doesn't feel real good especially with the way Raanta played. He really gave us a chance to get a couple of points. He played unbelievable for us. [Adin] Hill was the same way yesterday. Our goalies have been really good the last two games and we haven't been able to score enough goals and defend in the right moments. It's two real tough losses for us." -- Coyotes forward Nick Schmaltz on back-to-back losses
"They played last night. They've got a real quick team, quick transition team, so we just talked about controlling the puck tonight in the offensive zone, being patient with it, puck recoveries would be big against them just to limit their speed and their transition game, which we did a great job, everybody. Pretty good job tonight. That was the difference in the game. I would have liked to get a couple more goals, but goalies are hot right now." -- Blues coach Craig Berube

Need to know

Coyotes defenseman Jakob Chychrun missed his first game of the season with a lower-body injury and is day to day. ... Coyotes forward Barrett Hayton played for the first time since Nov. 29 (upper body). He had two shots in 10:47. ... Binnington has three shutouts this season and eight in his NHL career. He is the 10th goalie in NHL history to reach 50 regular-season wins (50-16-8) in 77 appearances or fewer. … The 46 shots for the Blues are a season high.

What's next

Coyotes: Host the Tampa Bay Lightning on Saturday (8 p.m. ET; FS-A PLUS, SUN, NHL.TV)
Blues: At the Dallas Stars on Friday (8:30 p.m. ET; ESPN+, FS-SW+, FS-MW, NHL.TV)