Kyrou stays hot, Blues defeat Predators for 6th straight win

ST. LOUIS -- Jordan Kyrou reached 30 goals for the third straight season, and the St. Louis Blues won their sixth straight game, 4-1 against the Nashville Predators at Enterprise Center on Sunday.

Justin Faulk had a goal and an assist, and Robert Thomas had three assists for the Blues (37-28-7), who are 13-2-2 their past 17 games. Jordan Binnington made 31 saves.

St. Louis leads the Calgary Flames, who have three games in hand, by four points for the second wild card into the Stanley Cup Playoffs from the Western Conference.

“It’s obviously a tough game and a division rival," Thomas said. "A very good team and they play hard. It was important for us to keep the roll going, especially on back-to-backs (the Blues won 5-1 at the Minnesota Wild on Saturday) and play a smart game. We felt pretty good about it.”

Filip Forsberg scored for the Predators (26-36-8), who have lost five of six (1-4-1). Justus Annunen made 14 saves.

“I thought our guys played hard and didn’t get rewarded again tonight,” Nashville coach Andrew Brunette said. “Obviously, it meant a lot for them, but I thought we rose up to the challenge to match their intensity.”

Kyrou gave the Blues a 1-0 lead at 12:13, taking a drop pass from Thomas on the rush and scoring with a quick snap shot from the top of the left circle. He has 11 points (six goals, five assists) during a six-game point streak.

Alexandre Texier made it 2-0 at 16:57 when he tapped in a seam pass from Thomas at the right post for a power-play goal. It was first goal since Feb. 2.

Forsberg cut it to 2-1 with a power-play goal at 1:04 of the second. He got the puck in the right circle and toe-dragged around Blues defenseman Ryan Suter before putting a wrist shot over Binnington’s blocker.

“Slow start, but after that, I thought we played good,” Forsberg said. “The second period was really good, I thought we kind of took it to them and really didn’t give them anything. … Third period, I thought we came out pretty good, too. It’s an even game, back and forth. They get the goal off the rush, but we’re still creating a ton of chances on the power play there at the end.

“Sadly, the theme of the season, we can’t get the puck to go in. If you get one of those two chances there it’s a 3-2 game, you never know what’s going to happen.”

Faulk made it 3-1 at 10:30 of the third period when his wrist shot from the high slot off the rush beat Annunen high on the glove side.

“We were chasing the game a little bit there, kind of in the second and then in the third,” Faulk said. “We didn’t have a ton of offensive-zone time, but it was a good breakout by Thomas there and Jake [Neighbours] just made a good pass actually. I wasn’t even thinking he was going to do that right away. It was just a good all-around play and nice to change the momentum and get things going our way and give ourselves some breathing room, I guess.”

Brayden Schenn scored an empty-net goal for the 4-1 final at 19:22.

“A lot of things happened in that game,” St. Louis coach Jim Montgomery said. “It was a frustrating game because we were in the box a lot, to my dismay, and there’s a lot of whistles so we couldn’t get any flow going. I could sense frustration, especially from our forward group, but they did a great job in the second period and it’s just because they couldn’t get in the flow of the game, people couldn’t get on the ice… but then in the third period again for four straight games, our third period’s our best period. The way we manage games now to close the games out, we learned a little bit from the Vancouver game (4-3 overtime win Thursday), but we’re much better at it and it’s just an opportunity for us to keep growing. You’ve got to win different games. Tonight, it was an ugly game to win, but we won it again.”

NOTES: Forsberg has six points (three goals, three assists) in a four-game point streak and three goals the past two games; he has 46 points (21 goals, 25 assists) in 41 games against St. Louis. … Blues forward Dalibor Dvorsky, the No. 10 pick in the 2023 NHL Draft, played 10:40 in his NHL debut. … St. Louis forward Dylan Holloway had an assist to give him 11 points (three goals, eight assists) in a seven-game point streak. ... Nashville's 32 shots on goal ended St. Louis' run of 16 straight games of allowing fewer than 30.