Binnington makes 50 saves, Blues top Golden Knights to end skid

ST. LOUIS -- Jordan Binnington made an NHL career high 50 saves, and the St. Louis Blues ended their seven-game skid with a 3-1 win against the Vegas Golden Knights at Enterprise Center on Wednesday.

Binnington was 2-8-3 with a 3.22 goals-against average and an .888 save percentage over his previous 14 starts.
"It's not always going to be perfect," Binnington said. "It's how you respond to adversity or just finding more digging deep inside. We needed a little more. We played a great game tonight. We've just got to keep building off that."
Jake Walman scored his first NHL goal for the Blues (17-16-6), who were 0-6-1 in their previous seven games. They also ended an eight-game home skid (0-6-2).
"Binnington was unbelievable tonight," Blues forward Vladimir Tarasenko said. "We're confident in 'Binner,' we're confident in Ville (Husso). Tonight, he was awesome. There is nothing else to say."
Nicolas Roy scored, and Marc-Andre Fleury made 32 saves for the Golden Knights (25-11-2), who scratched defenseman Alec Martinez because of an undisclosed injury.
Vegas, which won 6-1 here Monday, has lost four of five.
"You can't really spot them two goals early," Golden Knights captain Mark Stone said. "We blew them out in their building on Monday. It's naive for us to think they're not going to come out and give us their best game. We cheated the game a bit early. We were still looking for early offense. … They played hard for the first 20 minutes and pushed us on our heels with three breakaways in the first and a couple 2-on-1s. It could have been worse."
Tarasenko scored 48 seconds into the first period with a wrist shot high glove side to give the Blues a 1-0 lead.
Sammy Blais made it 2-0 at 7:21 of the first with a wrist shot from the high slot.

Vegas outshot St. Louis 21-4 in the second period.
"We only scored one, so you're never happy with all the looks," Golden Knights coach Peter DeBoer said. "I thought we generated some quality chances. We didn't have as much traffic as we had the last game. Sometimes you have to give the other goalie some credit, and he was obviously excellent tonight. ... We tried to get traffic there and a bunch of the looks, I thought we had some traffic in that area. But he fought through it and made some big saves."
Walman, a defenseman, scored at 13:31 of the third on a long rebound of Jordan Kyrou's shot to make it 3-0.
"I kind of blacked out a little bit, but it was a great play by our forwards to get the puck deep in the zone, and Kyrou made a good pass off the pad, I guess, and it came right to me and I was fortunate enough to put it in the net," Walman said. "The whole thing is kind of a blur looking back on it. I just … so many emotions, especially on this day. Great feeling."
Roy ended Binnington's shutout at 15:44 for the 3-1 final.
The Golden Knights were 0-for-4 on the power play.
"We competed and we did a good job keeping [shots] to the outside and clearing out rebounds," Binnington said. "The penalty kill was great. It's a good win for us."
NOTES: Binnington's previous NHL career high for saves was 46 in a 6-5 overtime loss against Vegas on Feb. 13, 2020. … The Golden Knights outscored the Blues 16-3 in the previous three games between the teams. … Vegas forward Chandler Stephenson returned after serving a three-game suspension for elbowing Los Angeles Kings defenseman Tobias Bjornfot. ... Blues forward Mike Hoffman, who has three goals in his past 20 games, was a healthy scratch for the second time in five games.