Stutzle has 4 points, Senators cruise past Blues

OTTAWA -- Tim Stutzle had two goals and two assists for the Ottawa Senators in an 8-1 win against the St. Louis Blues at Canadian Tire Centre on Tuesday.

“I think you guys know we’re really hard on ourselves and we want to make a difference every night, and some nights you have it, some nights you don’t,” Stutzle said. “But tonight was a do or die for us, kind of. We just worked really hard. Obviously, we tried to do that every night, and sometimes the puck goes to you, sometimes not, but I think tonight, we were just supporting each other really well in all three zones and we didn’t really give up a lot.”

Brady Tkachuk and Adam Gaudette each scored twice, and Claude Giroux had two assists to extend his point streak to seven games for the Senators (5-4-0), who scored eight goals for the second time in just over two weeks (8-7 overtime win against the Los Angeles Kings on Oct. 14). Linus Ullmark made 26 saves.

“Our team did a lot of good things today and I thought everyone played well,” Ottawa coach Travis Green said. “It wasn’t just one line; I thought, top to bottom, everyone was ready to play and committed not just physically but mentally.”

Dylan Holloway scored for the Blues (5-5-0), who were outshot 35-27. Joel Hofer allowed five goals on 21 shots, and Jordan Binnington made 11 saves in relief.

“I think it’s pretty plain and simple, kind of, in our minds,” St. Louis captain Brayden Schenn said. “Just soft in the battles and soft kind of all over the ice, competitive level wasn’t there and turned over pucks. Before you know it, that’s the score. But that’s kind of two games in a row now (5-2 loss to the Montreal Canadiens on Saturday). That’s 13 goals [against] not playing the right way.”

The Blues had 23 giveaways to the Senators’ nine.

“Nothing against what they did, but I think we made their night pretty easy,” St. Louis defenseman Justin Faulk said.

Josh Norris backhanded a centering pass from Giroux on the rush to give Ottawa a 1-0 lead at 1:04 of the first period. Giroux has 11 points (five goals, six assists) during his streak.

“Our line is connecting,” Giroux said of his trio with Norris and Drake Batherson. “It’s the first time playing together, all three of us. We’re having fun out there. We feel we have a little chemistry going right now.”

Noah Gregor made it 2-0 at 4:44 when he took a cross-slot pass from Michael Amadio and scored with a wrist shot top right. Amadio, who signed a three-year, $7.8 million contract ($2.6 million average annual value) with Ottawa on July 1, got his first point with the Senators.

Stutzle elected to shoot on a 2-on-1 rush and beat Hofer with a snap shot low blocker to make it 3-0 at 15:04.

“Early on, I thought it was self-inflicted, but overall, as a group, as a whole, coaches included, that wasn’t a good effort,” Blues coach Drew Bannister said. “Internally, we’re going to have to figure out what the issues are.”

Tkachuk scored with a wrist shot between Hofer’s pads on the power play to make it 4-0 at 8:55 of the second period. The Ottawa captain scored his second of the period on a subsequent power play to make it 5-0 at 11:08.

“Whenever we get in the zone, we kind of just play hockey,” Tkachuk said of the power-play success. “We’re not looking to set up; we have the mindset of ‘We want to score.’ It kind of doesn’t matter where anybody is; we have the skillset to kind of play anywhere and I think that’s been showing so far.”

Gaudette made it 6-0 at 11:50 with a snap shot over Binnington’s glove from the slot.

Stutzle one-timed a cross-slot pass from Thomas Chabot to make it 7-0 at 7:31 of the third period.

“I think Timmy has worked hard and is trying to become a real complete player that can win when it matters,” Green said. “And it’s not just Timmy. That’s our whole group. One thing from Day 1 I’ve said is this team, they want to win, desperately. And every team does, but they’ve impressed me in the matter that they’re willing to look themselves in the mirror and say, ‘What can I do differently to [have us] be a better team?’ And that’s not always the case.”

Holloway one-timed a cross-ice seam pass from Alexandre Texier on the power play to cut it to 7-1 at 9:04.

Gaudette scored on a Zack Bolduc giveaway in front of the net at 15:27 for the 8-1 final.

“We just know that it’s not acceptable,” Faulk said. “Our effort, and you can name it, just wasn’t close to what you need to have at this level. You’ve just got to take it head on, know what happened and you’ve got to move on.”

NOTES: St. Louis forward Kasperi Kapanen played 6:37 before leaving the game with an upper-body injury. Bannister said he didn’t know what play it happened on. … Stutzle has eight points (two goals, six assists) during a five-game point streak. … The win is Ottawa’s largest margin of victory since an 8-1 win against the New Jersey Devils on Oct. 21, 2006.