Kyrou scores twice, Blues pull away from Flames for 3rd win in row

CALGARY -- Jordan Kyrou scored twice, Thomas Greiss made 41 saves, and the St. Louis Blues pulled away in the third period for a 5-2 win against the Calgary Flames at Scotiabank Saddledome on Friday.

Ivan Barbashev and Pavel Buchnevich each had a goal and an assist, and Brandon Saad scored for the Blues (15-15-1), who have won three in a row and have points in four straight (3-0-1).
"That's huge, right? It's a nice little streak we've got going right now," Barbashev said. "Hopefully we keep winning. I think we're just playing for each other."
Connor Mackey scored his first two goals of the season, and Jacob Markstrom made 19 saves for the Flames (13-12-6), who have lost five in a row.
"No, it's not getting away from us," Calgary forward Mikael Backlund said. "We know we can still do a really good thing here. But we've got to pull together here and be a lot better. Execution wasn't good enough tonight. Secondary efforts, digging in to score.
"Never gave up, gave up some goals. But we haven't given up here. We know we're chasing it, for sure. We're behind in the standings. We know we've got to play better, win more games, and we're going to do it."
Kyrou gave St. Louis a 2-1 lead on the power play at 3:08 of the second period with a wrist shot over Markstrom's blocker on the rush.

Buchnevich made it 3-1 at 3:46 of the third period when he beat Markstrom with a wrist shot to the far side from the right circle. Buchnevich has 21 points (nine goals, 12 assists) over his past 16 games.
Mackey cut it to 3-2 at 7:40, scoring on a wrist shot by Greiss' glove off the rush, but Saad made it 4-2 at 8:58 when he slipped a backhand five-hole on Markstrom after collecting Mackey's turnover into the slot.
"I've got to be smart with the puck," Mackey said. "I feel like I let the guys down there. I mean, I can't be doing that right after we score to get right back in it, and we're right back out of it."
Kyrou then scored at 9:59 for the 5-2 final.
"We know we have some tough opponents and a tough stretch going into Christmas," Blues defenseman Colton Parayko said. "We're just trying to make up a little bit for kind of where we are right now in the standings. We have a really good team and things are starting to come together. It's looking good."
Barbashev gave St. Louis a 1-0 lead 4:07 into the first period, tapping a return pass from Robert Thomas on a 2-on-1 into a virtually empty net.
"I made a play to him, and he made a better play back to me," Barbashev said. "All I had to do was put it in the empty net; it was nice."

Mackey tied it 1-1 at 16:01 when Dillon Dube's wide shot from the high slot deflected off him and behind Greiss.
"We have a good team here, but we've got to show it too," Backlund said. "We're far from where we're starting to doubt ourselves. We know we can win games.
"But, at the same time, we know we're a team that's going to win by keeping it low, not giving up goals. We know we'll be [in] tight scoring and once in a while we get a big win."
NOTES: Kyrou has six points (three goals, three assists) in a three-game point streak, and 10 points (four goals, six assists) in his past eight games. ...Calgary is 0-8-1 when trailing after two periods. ...Mackey's father, David, played three seasons with St. Louis from 1991-94.