Blues beat Coyotes 4-1 to halt three-game skid
ST. LOUIS -- To Alexander Steen, a three-game losing streak by his St. Louis Blues was no cause for concern.
Steen and Vladimir Tarasenko scored in the second period to help the Blues rally for a 4-1 win over the Arizona Coyotes on Tuesday night.
"We have a solid hockey club, a very mentally strong (group). We take care of stuff in here," Steen said.
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"There's going to be lulls and times where for whatever reason things aren't in sync like they usually are. We had a couple games, but we just regrouped. We've been better in practice and kind of grabbed it. Today was good," he said.
Kevin Shattenkirk and David Backes also scored and Jake Allen made 22 saves.
"Quite frankly, our best players were our best players," St. Louis coach Ken Hitchcock said. "We needed to get back on the right track, and we needed our best players to be our best players and if you look at who scored the goals, you look at who played well, it's all the guys that have been through this before."
Steve Downie scored for the Coyotes and Mike Smith stopped 18 shots.
The Blues had scored just three goals in their previous three games, going 0-2-1. St. Louis was 2-2-3 over the past seven and 4-5-3 over its last 12. They have now won six straight against the Coyotes and are 9-0-1 in the last 10 meetings.
The Coyotes went 0-5 on their road trip through Nashville, Detroit, Buffalo, Carolina and St. Louis. They were outscored 24-10.
Arizona scored first against the Blues, with 7:48 left in the first period, when Downie slipped a rebound past Allen for his second of the season.
It took the Blues 13:34 to get their first shot on goal. The Coyotes outshot the hosts 9-3 in the first period as the Blues missed the net on eight shot attempts.
St. Louis tied it 5:08 into the second period. Jay Bouwmeester delivered a long spring pass to Magnus Paajarvi, who found Tarasenko alone in the slot and Tarasenko buried it for his 16th.
The Blues took a 2-1 lead on a shorthanded goal from Steen, his 10th of the season, on a 2-on-1 after a nice pass by Kevin Shattenkirk with just 8.8 seconds remaining in the second period.
It was the Blues' first shorthanded tally of the season and the league-high seventh allowed by Arizona.
"It was a good time in the game to get one, too," Steen said. "I thought we'd been battling hard and to get one like that was nice. It was a great pass by Shatty, a terrific pass by Shatty."
The Coyotes thought they tied it with a power-play goal with 2.6 seconds left in the period, but it was waved off by the officials. Tobias Rieder was tripped by Alex Pietrangelo and slid into Allen and then Anthony Duclair put home the rebound.
"If there would have been a penalty on Rieder then the goal would have counted but there was no penalty called," Arizona coach Dave Tippett said. "So the goaltender could not make (a play on the puck). Rieder took him out. So in looking at it, it was probably the right call."
Shattenkirk scored at 6:53 of the third after a back-handed cross-ice pass from Jori Lehtera. Shattenkirk's fourth of the season, also assisted by Robby Fabbri, gave him a two-point night.
Backes added an empty-net goal with 1:02 remaining.
NOTES: F Viktor Tikhonov made his debut with the Coyotes after being claimed off waivers from Chicago on Sunday. Tikhonov was drafted by Arizona. ... Coyotes F Martin Hanzal was scratched with a lower-body injury. The team announced he is day to day. ... St. Louis is 8-0-1 when leading after two periods this season. Arizona is now 0-11-1 when trailing after two periods.
