Blues score 7, cruise past Ducks

ST. LOUIS – Dylan Holloway and Jake Neighbours each had a goal and an assist for the St. Louis Blues in a 7-2 win against the Anaheim Ducks at Enterprise Center on Sunday.

Jordan Kyrou had three assists for the Blues (33-28-7), who have won nine of 13 (9-2-2), including a 5-1 win against the Minnesota Wild on Saturday. Jordan Binnington made 23 saves after he was pulled in the third period of a 5-3 loss to the Pittsburgh Penguins in his last start on Thursday.

“It’s been awesome. Obviously, winning is awesome,” Kyrou said. “We love winning in this building, playing in front of our fans. It’s good that we’re doing that and we just want to keep that up.”

The game started two hours past the original 6 p.m. (ET) start after the Blues had mechanical issues with their plane on Saturday, forcing them to travel on a game day. Coach Jim Montgomery said it’s just another obstacle overcome by his team.

“I’m very impressed, but as soon as they said something was wrong with our plane, we couldn’t get home, and I said, ‘We’re going to win tomorrow night,’ because it looks like our group is looking for challenges now and looking to accept them and overcome them," Montgomery said.

Cutter Gauthier had a goal and an assist, Nikita Nesterenko scored, and Mason McTavish had two assists for the Ducks (29-31-7), who have lost three of four. Lukas Dostal allowed five goals on 14 shots before being replaced by Ville Husso to begin the third period. Husso stopped 10 of 12 shots.

“They got a good team over there and they play a very structured game,” Gauthier said. “We wanted to get on top of them quick and they had a really good start and it put us on our heels a little bit. Kudos to them, but we’ve got to come out ready moving forward.”

Brayden Schenn gave the Blues a 1-0 lead just 41 seconds into the first period, converting a pass from Dylan Holloway at the right side of the crease. Schenn was honored in a pregame ceremony for playing in 1,000th NHL game last month.

“Special day, special night obviously scoring on the first shift,” Schenn said. “You play a lot of hockey and you usually don’t score on the first shift, and tonight with family and friends here and after the ceremony, pretty cool with how it all works out. Most importantly, we got the job done tonight and continue to climb up the standings.”

Pavel Buchnevich made it 2-0 at 1:30 when he redirected Neighbours' pass from the left boards past Dostal inside the near post.

“We were standing around the first five minutes. They got two quick goals,” Anaheim coach Greg Cronin said.

The Blues had just four shots in the second period but scored on three of them.

Holloway made it 3-0 at 8:19 of the second period with a one-timer from just inside the top of the right circle on the power play.

Gauthier cut it to 3-1 at 10:06 after collecting a rebound and scoring from the slot while falling.

Radek Faksa pushed it to 4-1 at 15:39, and Mathieu Joseph scored short-handed on a 2-on-1 rush at 18:10 to make it 5-1.

“I thought the second period we had a chance to get back into the game,” Cronin said. “We only gave up four shots. The short-handed goal they got kind of killed us. So whatever momentum we did have, we kind of lost it.”

Nesterenko cut the deficit to 5-2 at 2:23 of the third. McTavish sent a pass into the slot from the right boards that was deflected by Gauthier and then hit Nesterenko before going past Binnington.

Neighbours added St. Louis' second power-play goal at 6:18 to make it 6-2, and Oskar Sundqvist scored a third power-play goal at 12:19 for the 7-2 final.

“Our players are executing at a high level and I think [assistant coach] Steve Ott’s done a tremendous job,” Montgomery said of the power play success. “It’s been like this for a while, like since the outdoor game [2025 Discover NHL Winter Classic]. If you look at what our power play has done since then, I bet you it’s top four in the League.”

NOTES: Nesterenko has four career goals in the NHL, all against St. Louis. … The Blues have held their opponents to fewer than 30 shots in 13 straight games and are No. 1 in the League since Feb. 7, allowing 23.3 shots per game against. … Kyrou has six points (three goals, three assists) in his past two games. He became the fourth Blues player in the past 30 years with three-point games on consecutive days, joining David Perron (May 12-13, 2021), Alex Pietrangelo (March 17-18, 2018) and Brad Boyes (March 28-29, 2008). ... The Blues have won 10 straight against the Ducks dating to Dec. 12, 2021.