Tarasenko, Blues end Avalanche's eight-game point streak

ST. LOUIS -- The St. Louis Blues ended the Colorado Avalanche's eight-game point streak when Vladimir Tarasenko had a goal and two assists in a 3-1 win at Enterprise Center on Monday.

"You have a good thing going and you never want it to end, but it was bound to happen sometime," Avalanche coach Jared Bednar said. "Now we need to get our guys some rest, hopefully get healthy and then regroup and get ready to go against a tough Vegas team Friday]*
Bednar said Rantanen, who had an assist, will be re-evaluated Tuesday.
"I'm sure Mikko's fine," Avalanche captain Gabriel Landeskog said of Rantanen, who has 12 points (five goals, seven assists) in nine games. "For us, with or without Mikko, there's still a plenty good enough hockey team in here to win a hockey game.
"We're not going to make it about Mikko or about one guy. This is a team. We've lost guys in the past and found ways to win hockey games."
Nathan MacKinnon scored for Colorado to extend his season-opening point streak to nine games (five goals, seven assists), and Philipp Grubauer made 22 saves.

Brayden Schenn and David Perron scored, and Jordan Binnington made 17 saves for St. Louis (4-2-3), which ended a four-game losing streak (0-2-2).
"That was probably our best game of the year throughout the entire game," Blues captain Alex Pietrangelo said. "I thought we played really well. I thought everybody skated well, good energy. That's what we were looking for."
Perron's goal at 5:07 of the second period gave the Blues a 2-1 lead, and Tarasenko made it 3-1 at 15:06.
Schenn gave St. Louis a 1-0 lead with a power-play goal at 7:07 of the first period. He leads the Blues with six goals.

MacKinnon tied it 1-1 with a 5-on-3 goal at 12:37 of the first and became the fifth player in NHL history with a season-opening point streak of at least nine games in consecutive seasons, joining Wayne Gretzky (30 games, 1982-83; 51 games, 1983-84; 16 games, 1984-85 and nine games, 1985-86), Charlie Simmer (nine games, 1979-80 and 13 games, 1980-81), Guy Lafleur (10 games, 1975-76 and 10 games, 1976-77) and Rod Gilbert (nine games, 1971-72 and 14 games, 1972-73).
St. Louis outshot Colorado 11-1 in the second period and held the Avalanche to eight shots in the third.
"I thought it was a real solid game throughout," Blues coach Craig Berube said. "We were on the right side of things the whole game. We checked well. Just worked, and we were stingy tonight, good defensively.
"Our game without the puck tonight was our best game for me."

They said it

"For us, it was more about us than about them. To be honest, it wouldn't have mattered if they had their 'A' game or their 'C' game tonight. We just weren't good enough and on a night like tonight, we're not going to beat too many teams." -- Avalanche captain Gabriel Landeskog
"We have some games where we lost two-goal leads. We talk about it inside the locker room. I think that game, we stay on the plan for 60 minutes and it was a pretty good effort by everyone today." -- Blues forward Vladimir Tarasenko

Need to know

Avalanche defenseman Nikita Zadorov played his 300th NHL game. ... The Blues are 8-1-0 in their past nine games against the Avalanche at home, and 16-3-0 since Apr. 5, 2011. … Tarasenko has eight points (three goals, five assists) in a five-game point streak. ... Schenn has nine points (six goals, three assists) in his past eight games. ... Blues forward Jaden Schwartz extended his point streak to five games (one goal, four assists).

What's next

Avalanche: At the Vegas Golden Knights on Friday (6 p.m. ET; ESPN+, ATTSN-RM, ALT2, NHL.TV)
Blues: Host the Los Angeles Kings on Thursday (8 p.m. ET; FS-MW, FS-W, NHL.TV)