Blues defeat Lightning to end three-game winless streak

ST. LOUIS -- The St. Louis Blues ended a three-game winless streak with a 3-1 victory against the Tampa Bay Lightning at Enterprise Center on Tuesday.

David Perron, Oskar Sundqvist and Jaden Schwartz scored, and Jordan Binnington made 17 saves for St. Louis (13-4-5), which was 0-1-2 in its previous three games and is 8-1-2 in its past 11.
"I just think we needed our game for a full 60 minutes," Sundqvist said. "It was a while ago since we did that. It feels like tonight was finally the night where we were putting up our complete game for 60 minutes."
WATCH: [All Lightning vs. Blues highlights]
Anthony Cirelli scored, and Andrei Vasilevskiy made 31 saves for Tampa Bay (9-7-2), which lost its second straight.
"In the end," Lightning coach Jon Cooper said, "if you turn the puck over, it gives the other team momentum, you don't have it, and then things are out of sorts because you've got to plan coming up ice, you turn it over, and now you're scrambling back. That really affected us in the second period, but it's been an Achillies' heel of ours and something that we've seen doesn't work, and when we don't do it, it works. That's too bad, because it was a winnable hockey game."

Lightning forward Nikita Kucherov left the game at 17:57 of the second period with an upper-body injury following a check from Blues center Brayden Schenn.
"He took a big hit there," Cooper said. "I don't have an update on him. [The NHL concussion protocol is] not why he didn't return. He couldn't return. He tried but couldn't do it."
Sundqvist scored from the right face-off circle at 6:16 of the third period off a no-look pass by Robert Thomas to give the Blues a 2-1 lead.
"Awesome pass by Thomas there," Sundqvist said. "… I really didn't know that it went in. It was nice to see that it was laying behind Vasilevskiy."
Perron tied it 1-1 at 17:24 of the second after getting to a rebound in front. St. Louis outshot Tampa Bay 18-4 in the period.
"We just talked about playing a quick game in the second period with the line changes," Blues coach Craig Berube said. "Quick-up everything, get it up in the offensive zone, keep the shifts short, keep rolling [the lines]. Guys did a good job of that, I thought."

Cirelli gave the Lightning a 1-0 lead at 16:36 of the first period. They had eight shots in the period and 10 over the final two.
"Obviously that's a good team over there," Cirelli said. "I thought turnovers [were] maybe a little bit too much. They took it to us there a bit. We didn't get many shots through. We've got to learn from this and get back to work tomorrow."
Schwartz scored into an empty net with five seconds remaining for the 3-1 final.

They said it

"It was really nice of them. It was a good, warm welcome for me and my family. It's a memory I'll never forget." -- Lightning forward Pat Maroon, who helped the Blues win their first championship last season, on receiving his Stanley Cup ring in a pregame ceremony
"I think we played a pretty solid game tonight. We're happy to come out with this win." -- Blues goalie Jordan Binnington

Need to know

Lightning forward Steven Stamkos had his five-game point streak (eight points; two goals, eight assists) end; he was minus-2 and lost 11 of 13 face-offs. ... Tampa Bay forward Alex Killorn had an assist and extended his point streak to five games (seven points; three goals, four assists). ... Lightning defenseman Victor Hedman had an assist and ran his point streak to five games (eight points; two goals, six assists). ... The Lightning are 1-7-0 when they don't score a power-play goal; they were 0-for-2 with the man-advantage Tuesday. ... Sundqvist's six shots tied an NHL career high. He had six at the Calgary Flames on Dec. 22. ... St. Louis center Ryan O'Reilly won 16 of 22 face-offs. … Tuesday was the one-year anniversary of Berube replacing Mike Yeo as Blues coach.

What's next

Lightning: At the Chicago Blackhawks on Thursday (8:30 p.m. ET; NBCSCH, SUN, NHL.TV)
Blues: Host the Calgary Flames on Thursday (8 p.m. ET; FS-MW, SNW, NHL.TV)