Jake Allen makes 30 saves, Blues blank Senators

OTTAWA -- Jake Allen made 30 saves, and Vladimir Tarasenko scored two goals for the St. Louis Blues in a 6-0 win against the Ottawa Senators at Canadian Tire Centre on Tuesday.
It was Allen's second shutout of the season, and the second for St. Louis in as many nights after Carter Hutton made 26 saves in a 2-0 win at the Philadelphia Flyers on Monday to begin a five-game road trip.
Magnus Paajarvi, Patrik Berglund, Alexander Steen and Ivan Barbashev scored for the Blues (27-22-5), who are 3-1-0 since Mike Yeo replaced Ken Hitchcock as coach Feb. 1.

WATCH: All Blues vs. Senators highlights
The Senators (27-18-6) were shut out for the second game in a row and lost for the fourth time in their past five (1-3-1). Goalie Andrew Hammond, coming back from a high ankle sprain to make his first start since Dec. 18, third of the season, had 24 saves.

The line of Tarasenko with Steen (goal, assist) and Paul Stastny (two assists) combined for six points in its second game together under Yeo.
The Blues coaching staff is committed to keeping the line together to see if the chemistry continues, Yeo said.
"Those guys are too good not to break through at some point," he said. "We talked about it. Part of the decision is we like the potential, and we saw that potential come through tonight. The other part of the decision is we liked the rest of the lineup the way it shaped up, and we had some pretty good depth of scoring in our game tonight."
Tarasenko said his linemates are too talented for the line not to work.
"It's like an old new line, you know?" he said. "We used to play before a lot, but it takes a couple of games, a couple of days to find out and remember this connection. Not only our line, our team has a good mood right now and some big games coming for us.

"[Steen] and [Stastny] are really good players, and it's not hard to find the chemistry with good players. You just need to talk a couple times about some things and go on the ice and play."
Paajarvi, playing his first NHL game since Oct. 18, scored his second goal of the season at 1:51 of the second period to put the Blues up 1-0.
Tarasenko made it 2-0 at 6:46 of the second. The goal came seven seconds after a penalty to Ottawa defenseman Marc Methot expired.
The Blues scored four goals in the third period.
Berglund beat Hammond on the power play at 1:46 to make it 3-0, Steen pushed it to 4-0 at 10:43, and Tarasenko made it 5-0 when he scored his 25th goal at 13:49.
Barbashev scored his first NHL goal at 15:01 to make it 6-0.

Senators forward Bobby Ryan said Hammond deserved a better effort from his teammates.
"He's been a professional throughout all the ups and downs the last couple of months from him," Ryan said. "Coming back into that from us is disrespectful."

Goal of the game

Paajarvi received a pass from Kevin Shattenkirk at the St. Louis blue line, skated the puck into the Ottawa zone, went around Zack Smith in the right faceoff circle and beat Hammond top shelf on the forehand.

Save of the game

At 1:54 of the first period, Hammond closed his pads to stop Kenny Agostino's backhand while all alone in the slot.

Highlight of the game

Stastny made a sharp pass between Senators defenseman Cody Ceci's skates to Tarasenko at the bottom of the left circle for the Blues' second goal.

Unsung performance of the game

Defenseman Joel Edmundson played 18:05 and led the Blues with four hits and three blocked shots.

They said it

"I had a little bit of a funk there and had to find my way back. I went back to my basics, went back to the drawing board and just doing what I'm good at. If I can do that the majority of the time, I'm going to have success. I feel like the last week it's been a really good step for me." -- Blues goaltender Jake Allen
"We've been playing good hockey for I don't know how many games we've played. We've had a lot of success over the course of the year. We haven't really gone through a stretch where we've had the problems were having right now. At the end of the day, I don't think it's a bigger problem than anything else, other than we're playing good teams, we're playing teams that are desperate, and we haven't really matched that intensity." -- Senators captain Erik Karlsson

Need to know

After winning five of their first 17 games on the road, the Blues have won five of their past seven with four shutouts. … Senators forward Chris Neil returned to the lineup in place of Curtis Lazar after being a healthy scratch the previous two games. … The Blues have scored two power-play goals in their past six games (2-for-12) after Berglund's in the third period.

What's next

Blues: At the Toronto Maple Leafs on Thursday (7:30 p.m. ET; SNO, FS-MW, NHL.TV)
Senators:Host the Dallas Stars on Thursday (7:30 p.m. ET; RDS2, TSN5, FS-SW+, NHL.TV)