Blues Trounce Coyotes, Lightning Edges Blackhawks

By ESPN

St. Louis wing Jaden Schwartz never panicked. He never displayed any frustration during a lengthy scoring funk.

"It doesn't help," he said. "You've just got to keep grinding away."

That mentality finally paid dividends on Monday night, when Schwartz scored twice and Jake Allen made 21 saves to help the Blues continue their mastery over the Arizona Coyotes with a 4-1 win.

St. Louis has won 10 straight games against Arizona, outscoring the Coyotes 42-13 in that time. The Blues have won 10 of their last 12 overall and trail Nashville by a point for third place in the Central Division.

Arizona has lost six of its last seven. The teams meet again Wednesday in Phoenix.

Schwartz has four goals in his last four games after scoring just once -- an empty net tally -- in a 25-game stretch from Jan. 21 to March 18.

"It's obviously nice when they're going in," Schwartz said. "Guys go through slumps at different times in their careers. You just try to stick with it and do the right things."

Alex Pietrangelo and Vladimir Tarasenko also scored for St. Louis, which is 16-1-1 against Arizona since 2011-12. Alexander Steen added four assists.

Schwartz and linemates Steen and Tarasenko racked up 10 points in the contest.

"Even when he wasn't scoring, he was contributing," Steen said of Schwartz. "Eventually it turned in his favor."

St. Louis coach Mike Yeo agreed.

"The law of averages (says) it would be inevitable that pucks would start going in," he said.

Allen improved to 7-0 lifetime against Arizona. He has won eight of his last 10 starts, allowing just 13 goals.

Arizona goalie Mike Smith stopped 24 shots.

Schwartz converted from close range off a pass from behind the net by Steen midway through the second period for a 1-0 lead.

Schwartz, backhanded a shot past Smith midway through the third period to push the lead to 3-1.

Pietrangelo tied a career high with his 12th goal of the season. Tarasenko scored his team-high 35th goal with 1:49 left.

The Blues managed just five shots on goal in a scoreless first period but broke loose with two goals midway through the second period.

"After the first period, we started working a lot harder," Steen said.

Arizona pulled within 2-1 on a goal by Anthony DeAngelo 61 seconds into the final period.

Coyotes center Clayton Keller, the seventh overall pick in the 2016 draft, made his NHL debut after signing an entry-level contract on Sunday. Keller is a native of the St. Louis suburb of Swansea, Illinois.

He played 21 shifts covering 14:09 just three days after his Boston University team was eliminated from the NCAA Tournament.

"It was a really special moment," Keller said. "It is something I will remember forever. And you only have one first NHL game. I thought it was pretty cool."

Tarasenko came over to Keller right before the opening faceoff to offer congratulations.

"He's a star player, it's really special for him to do that," Keller said.

Arizona lost four of five on the road trip and managed just one goal in each of the four losses.

"(Our) margin for error was pretty slim and you're making critical mistakes," Arizona coach Dave Tippett said. "You give up key chances and they come back to bite you."

Lightning 5, Blackhawks 4

Yanni Gourde's second career goal capped a tremendous comeback by the Tampa Bay Lightning against one of the NHL's elite teams.

Gourde had a breakaway goal 4:25 into overtime and the Lightning rallied from a three-goal deficit to beat the Chicago Blackhawks 5-4 on Monday night.

Playing in his 13th game this season and 15th overall, Gourde beat Scott Darling after Victor Hedman set up the winner with his third assist of the game.

"A pretty good moment," Gourde said. "It was a pretty amazing feeling."

Tampa Bay, which trails Boston by a point for the second Eastern Conference wild card, got two goals from Jonathan Drouin. Ondrej Palat and Anton Stralman also scored, and Andrei Vasilevskiy, who got pulled 14 minutes into the first after allowing three goals on eight shots, returned to start the second and finished with 25 saves.

"It's not going to mean anything unless we get ourselves in (the playoffs)," Tampa Bay coach Jon Cooper said. "This was just another step, a really exciting one."

Artemi Panarin, Patrick Kane, Tomas Jurco and Richard Panik scored for the Western Conference-leading Blackhawks, who were coming off a 7-0 loss Saturday night at Florida. Darling stopped 25 shots.

"We had everything going our way there and then we started getting cute in the neutral zone," Blackhawks coach Joel Quenneville said. "We let them get back in the game."

After the Blackhawks went up 4-1 midway through the second on Panik's goal, Tampa Bay tied it at 4 on Drouin's goals and one by Stralman in a 4:39 span.

Chicago took a 3-1 lead after the first period on goals by Panarin, Kane and Jurco. Palat, playing in his 300th NHL game, had the Tampa Bay goal.

"We had such a good first period," Darling said. "A good start for the second and then they just turned it on. It was pretty impressive."

Palat and Drouin's second goal came on power plays after Chicago was penalized for delay of game after shooting the puck over the glass.

The Blackhawks have the 24th ranked short-handed unit in the NHL.

Nikita Kucherov had two assists to set a Tampa Bay record for points in a single month with 22. The right wing has four assists and 11 points during a five-game point streak.

Monday, March 27 Scoreboard

Buffalo 4, Florida 2

Nashville 3, New York Islanders 1

Detroit 4, Carolina 3 (OT)

Tampa Bay 5, Chicago 4 (OT)

St. Louis 4, Arizona 1

Calgary 4, Colorado 2

Tuesday, March 28 Schedule (All Times Central)

Nashville at Boston, 6 p.m.

Ottawa at Philadelphia, 6 p.m.

Detroit at Carolina, 6 p.m.

Buffalo at Columbus, 6 p.m.

Winnipeg at New Jersey, 6 p.m.

Florida at Toronto, 6:30 p.m.

Dallas at Montreal, 6:30 p.m.

Washington at Minnesota, 7 p.m.

Los Angeles at Edmonton, 8 p.m.

Anaheim at Vancouver, 9 p.m.

New York  Rangers at San Jose, 9:30 p.m.