Greaves stops 41, Blue Jackets top Blues to end 3-game skid

COLUMBUS -- Jet Greaves made 41 saves for his first NHL victory when the Columbus Blue Jackets defeated the St. Louis Blues 5-2 at Nationwide Arena on Friday.

Greaves, in his second career start and first since April 4 of last season, made 23 saves in the third period.

“It was fun,” he said. “I felt the guys were great in front of me. I thought it was a really good 60 for us, especially coming off a back to back. It’s a really good game to build on for this group.

“Something we've talked about is making sure we close out games in the third and I thought we did a great job with that. They had the empty net there for six minutes and I think we did a really good job of keeping the traffic out and clearing the loose pucks.”

Yegor Chinakhov had two goals and an assist, Kirill Marchenko had a goal and an assist, and Adam Fantilli scored and for the Blue Jackets (9-15-5), who ended a three-game skid following a 7-3 loss at the New York Islanders on Thursday. Dmitri Voronkov had two assists.

Blue Jackets leading scorer Boone Jenner (13 goals) exited at 12:09 of the second period and did not return after taking a puck to face the face from teammate Ivan Provorov. Columbus coach Pascal Vincent did not have an update on Jenner.

Robert Thomas scored twice, and Joel Hofer made 17 saves for the Blues (13-12-1), who have lost two straight and three of four.

“Doesn’t matter who you play, if you give teams opportunities to make plays, their guys end up making them and you’ll be taking the puck out of the net,” St. Louis defenseman Torey Krug said.

Marchenko gave the Blue Jackets a 1-0 lead at 1:42 of the first period with a shot that slipped through the pads of Hofer.

“We just keep progressing together and go step up,” Marchenko said. “Every game we try.”

Thomas tied it 1-1 at 14:36 on a breakaway on the stretch pass from Pavel Buchnevich.

Fantilli put Columbus back ahead 2-1 at 17:01 after scoring from the left circle. He has three goals in his past two games.

“We came out with confidence,” Fantilli said. “We were trusting each other, we trust our system, played hard. We kind of stayed more engaged. We didn't sit back to try and protect the lead. We were trying to extend it and get more goals to differentiate that 2-1, 3-1 lead. Trying to build on that and make that lead bigger keeps us playing our game.”

The Blues have the 31st-ranked power play in the NHL and went 0 for 3.

“We got down and couldn’t find a way to fight back,” Thomas said. “We had power-play chances. We need to find a way to score. It changes the game if we get it to 2-2. That’s on our power play to get some momentum and score some goals.

“We’ve got lots of chances but we need to find a way to put them in. It’s costing us games.”

Chinakhov made it 3-1 at 6:26 of the third period. Voronkov forced a giveaway in the Blue Jackets’ zone and passed to Marchenko, who found Chinakhov.

Chinakhov scored again on the power play at 12:21 to extend it to 4-1.

“We made three mistakes tonight -- three goals in our net,” St. Louis coach Craig Berube said. “We had chances but when you make mistakes, they capitalized on them. We made two in the third. There’s a face-off play we turned it over on it. They got an odd-man rush. The PK goal was a mistake too.”

Thomas scored at 17:41 to cut it to 4-2 with Hofer pulled for the extra attacker, but Alexandre Texier scored into an empty net with four seconds remaining for the 5-2 final.

NOTES: Marchenko (86 games) scored his 30th NHL goal and needed the fewest games in Blue Jackets history to reach the number, besting Rick Nash’s previous mark of 96 games. … Greaves’ first NHL game was a 4-2 loss to the Toronto Maple Leafs last season on April 4 when he set the Columbus franchise records in a goaltending debut for saves (46) and shots faced (49). … Blue Jackets forward Patrik Laine and defenseman Erik Gudbranson missed their third straight games, and goalie Elvis Merzlikins his second, due to illnesses.