Blues score 3 unanswered to rally past Avalanche

ST. LOUIS -- Brayden Schenn, Colton Parayko and Dylan Holloway scored three goals in the second period, and the St. Louis Blues rallied past the Colorado Avalanche 3-1 at Enterprise Center on Sunday.

Jordan Kyrou and Justin Faulk each had two assists for the Blues (26-26-6), who are 3-1-2 in their past six games. Jordan Binnington, playing for the first time since playing for Canada in the 4 Nations Face-Off, made 28 saves.

“We were relentless, I thought, in our checking and offensively after the first period, I thought we were really hard offensively,” St. Louis coach Jim Montgomery said. “Not passing up shots, having people at the net front, driving the net. We tried a lot of low slot line plays, East-West plays and I thought our D-men were really good.”

Devon Toews scored for the Avalanche (33-24-2), who have lost back-to-back games, including 2-1 to the Nashville Predators on Saturday and finished 2-3-0 on a five-game road trip. Mackenzie Blackwood made 22 saves.

“I liked our first 15 minutes probably,” Colorado coach Jared Bednar said, “and then it just disappeared. Both teams are in the same boat on the back-to-backs. It’s not an excuse. The three guys [Cale Makar, Nathan MacKinnon and Toews] that played in the [4 Nations] tournament, it looked like they were working as hard as they could, but they didn’t seem to have the pop that they had yesterday, which I think is understandable, which is why we kind of planned on giving them tomorrow and the next day off for those guys even though the team will come back to work on Tuesday.

“All in all, we just didn’t have enough guys going. I don’t want to call it effort but the competitiveness, we needed to win that hockey game.”

Toews gave the Avalanche a 1-0 lead at 7:49 of the first period when he got a high-slot tip of Makar’s wrister from the right point. Makar earned his 400th NHL point on the assist, making him the third-fastest defenseman in NHL history to reach the milestone in his 374th game. Only Bobby Orr (333) and Paul Coffey (359) did it in fewer games.

Colorado began to generate offense like it did against Nashville on Saturday when the Avalanche outshot the Predators 32-17 but couldn’t sustain it, which is what Makar said was disappointing.

“We know as a group we have a lot better than this,” Makar said. “It’s just unfortunate when we can’t find the consistency. Obviously played well last night but don’t find the goals. You’ve just got to get back to it and be better tonight. Unfortunately, we weren’t.”

Schenn tied it 1-1 at 10:45 of the second period collecting a Kyrou rebound in the right circle. It came after Blackwood robbed the Blues captain from the slot earlier in the period.

Parayko made it 2-1 at 14:13 when he outmuscled Makar at the side of the net for a loose puck after Pavel Buchnevich threw one at the crease off the righthand side boards.

Holloway made it 3-1 at 19:50 when he drove the net and redirected in Faulk’s centering pass from the right corner.

“In general, we were playing well,” Faulk said. “We thought we had a really good period. Obviously that helps any time you get a late goal, there’s some momentum carryover. To be honest, it doesn’t usually last too long. Maybe a shift or two so you have to keep rolling it over and moving that way. But we were committed to it tonight. We kept it going in the third and didn’t give them much room.”

The Avalanche tried to push late when they pulled Blackwood with 2:34 remaining in the third period, but Binnington rose to the occasion stopping all 13 shots he faced.

“It was a little bit of an adjustment, wearing white pads, blue jersey, at this rink,” Binnington said. “Obviously the last game I played was very, very intense and this game built and got more intense as it went along, but we came out and we got two big points, three big points on the weekend (after a 4-3 shootout loss to the Winnipeg Jets on Saturday). Our team played phenomenal. It’s a great start for us coming out of the break and it was fun to have the lead, win the game at home and have the crowd into it.”

NOTES: Blues forward Robert Thomas had an assist to extend his point streak to six games (three goals, six assists). … Faulk’s multi-point game was just his third in 54 games this season. … Buchnevich has five points (one goal, four assists) in a three-game point streak. … MacKinnon was held without a point for a second straight game, the second time it’s happened this season; it also happened Nov. 25-27. … Makar has 27 points (six goals, 21 assists) in 24 games against St. Louis. … The Blues honored defenseman Ryan Suter on Sunday for playing in his 1,500th game on Feb. 8 against the Chicago Blackhawks.