Blues hold off Blackhawks for 6th win in 8 games

CHICAGO -- Brandon Saad had a goal and an assist, and the St. Louis Blues won for the sixth time in eight games, 5-3 against the Chicago Blackhawks at United Center on Thursday.

"We're scoring lots of goals. I think that's the biggest thing we've got going for us right now," St. Louis coach Craig Berube said. "We're scoring goals, and we've got a lot of guys playing pretty good offense right now. That's the bottom line.
"Our penalty kill hasn't been great, our power play hasn't been great lately, [but] we're still finding ways to score goals and win games."

Justin Faulk had two assists, and Jordan Binnington made 30 saves for the Blues (35-34-6), who won 6-5 in overtime against the Vancouver Canucks on Tuesday.
St. Louis moved within nine points of the idle Winnipeg Jets for the second wild card into the Stanley Cup Playoffs from the Western Conference. Each has seven games remaining.
"I think it's a lot of things," Blues forward Kasperi Kapanen said. "Our defense has been better; against Vancouver, our third period at the end of the game wasn't our best, but I think it's been better. Our offense has been good; guys have been stepping up. Its not just one guy, it's a lot of guys making good plays and scoring goals for us. The team is just playing well right now."

Tyler Johnson had a goal and an assist, Taylor Raddysh had two assists, and Petr Mrazek made 24 saves for the Blackhawks (24-45-6), who have been outscored 31-10 during a seven-game losing streak.
"Yeah, it's frustrating," Chicago coach Luke Richardson said. "I'm sure the guys are frustrated. They put a lot of really good effort in. They did what we talked about all day, really good start. We just didn't have the finish. We just don't have that natural finish. Maybe that's just where our squad is right now, but I liked how we pushed back."

Jakub Vrana gave St. Louis a 1-0 lead at 4:25 of the second period on a redirection of Saad's centering pass.
Andreas Athanasiou tied it 1-1 at 10:24, scoring backdoor after receiving a cross-crease feed from Johnson on a power play. It was his first goal in 15 games.
Logan Brown restored the Blues' lead at 12:59. After Josh Leivo knocked the puck away from Anders Bjork in the offensive zone, Faulk had his shot from the high slot deflect in off Brown to make it 2-1.
Alexey Toropchenko scored 38 seconds later to extend it to 3-1 at 13:37 when Tyler Pitlick found him trailing during a 3-on-1.
Faulk, who had the secondary assist, has four consecutive multipoint games (two goals, seven assists).
"Sometimes you get on runs where you get more chances," Faulk said. "Sometimes it's just having lucky bounces. I'm getting a few points, but there's definitely a few assists in there that are just luck and ended up getting on the scoresheet. … Sometimes you get on those runs. I'm not disappointed by it."

Johnson responded 31 seconds into the third period to make it 3-2, tipping in a shot-pass by Raddysh from the left face-off circle on a power play.
Jordan Kyrou made it 4-2 at 9:25 when he received a pass from Sammy Blais, cut through the slot and scored stick side.
Boris Katchouk scored 36 seconds later to cut it to 4-3 at 10:01. After Seth Jones tried to pass himself the puck through the skates of Faulk, Katchouk picked up the loose puck and scored around the outstretched right pad of Binnington.
Saad scored an empty-net goal at 18:47 for the 5-3 final.
"We fought to the end there," Raddysh said. "Parts of that game, we played really well. We had a really good start. In the second, we fell apart a bit, but we rounded up in the third period and fought to the end and fell short there."
NOTES:Vrana has nine goals in 13 games with St. Louis since being acquired from the Detroit Red Wings on March 3. ... Blues forward Brayden Schenn had an assist and extended his point streak to six games (three goals, five assists). … Mrazek is 0-6-1 in his past eight starts. … Blais extended his point streak to six games (two goals, seven assists). … Kapanen had one assist in his first NHL game at center. … St. Louis forwards Pavel Buchnevich and Robert Thomas did not play and are day to day with an upper-body injury. … Chicago forward Austin Wagner had four shots on goal, one hit and was minus-1 in 11:11 of ice time in his first NHL game since May 12, 2021, as a member of the Los Angeles Kings.