Voronkov has 2 goals, Blue Jackets score 6 to hold off Blues

COLUMBUS -- Dmitri Voronkov scored twice, and Sean Monahan and Ivan Provorov each had three assists when the Columbus Blue Jackets held off the St. Louis Blues for a 6-4 win at Nationwide Arena on Saturday.

The Blue Jackets had a three-goal lead three times in a third period in which eight total goals were scored. Mathieu Olivier sealed it with an empty-net goal at 18:59 for the 6-4 final.

“There was a lot of goals, but that can happen at any time,” Columbus forward Adam Fantilli said. “They're a good team. They played last night, so maybe they had a bit of a slow start, and maybe they found their game in the third and that's what caused that.

“They're a team that likes to go. We knew they were going to try and score their goals at the end there, and it was going to get run and gun. All that matters is we ended up with the win.”

Kirill Marchenko and Fantilli scored, and Zach Werenski had two assists to extend his home point streak to 15 games for the Blue Jackets (17-17-6), who are 5-2-1 in their past eight games. Elvis Merzlikins made 29 saves.

“They're building that resilience,” Columbus coach Dean Evason said. “They're building that whole pack that they stick together.”

Jordan Kyrou had a goal and two assists, Brayden Schenn and Cam Fowler each had a goal and an assist, and Colton Parayko also scored for the Blues (19-18-4), who had won two straight and four of five. Dylan Holloway had two assists, and Joel Hofer made 33 saves.

St. Louis was coming off a 4-0 victory against the Ottawa Senators on Friday.

“I wish we would have capitalized on some of the odd-man rushes that we had in the first,” St. Louis coach Jim Montgomery said. “First goal was big. They got it there towards the end of the first. They played really desperate. They went hard to our net, throwing everything at the net. We expected it. And then the second, we were kind of flat. And then the third, we pushed back.”

Voronkov gave Columbus a 1-0 lead at 19:01 of the first period.

Marchenko scored on the power play to make it 2-0 at 2:15 of the second period. His shot from the left went off the skate off Parayko.

Mikael Pyyhtia extended it to 3-0 with his first NHL short-handed goal at 3:44 of the third period on a breakaway.

Kyrou cut it to 3-1 on the power play at 4:54, scoring from the slot.

“A little bit desperation, a little more push from us, like we're just trying to fire pucks more and just get to the net more,” Kyrou said.

Fantilli took a long pass off the boards from Werenski and pushed it to 4-1 at 5:25 with a goal from the right circle.

Fowler made it 4-2 at 6:55 off a pass by Holloway for his 100th NHL goal.

Voronkov scored his second goal of the game on the backhand to extend it to 5-2 at 7:24, the last of five total goals scored in a span of 3:40.

Parayko cut it to 5-3 at 12:54, but Schenn made it 5-4 at 16:16.

“We made a strong push, for sure,” Parayko said. “I thought that's obviously a positive. Disappointing not to get two points, but it's good to see the push.”

But it wasn’t enough, and the Blue Jackets continued their surge.

“Anytime you go into the season, no matter what you have on the team or whatever happens with the team, your goal is to make the playoffs and then see what happens,” Provorov said. “Right now, our goal is to get better as a team and to make the playoffs.”

NOTES: Marchenko’s 43 points (17 goals, 26 assists) in 40 games surpasses his NHL career best of 42 (23 goals, 19 assists) in 78 games last season. … Werenski has 30 points (nine goals, 21 assists) during his home streak, which is the longest such streak by a defenseman since Ray Bourque had a 17-game streak in 1992-93. … Werenski has six points (goal, five assists) in a three-game point streak and 13 points (one goal, 12 assists) in his past six games. … Parayko, who played in his 700th NHL game, became the third defenseman and eighth player to appear in as many games with the Blues.