The St. Louis Blues are probably happy to be done with back-to-backs this season.

Sunday's 4-1 win over the Nashville Predators was the team's final one of the season, and St. Louis slugged through the evening on its way to its sixth straight win. With the win, the Blues moved four points ahead of Calgary for the second wild-card spot in the West, though the Flames have played three fewer games than St. Louis.

Jordan Kyrou, Alexandre Texier (power play), Justin Faulk and Brayden Schenn (empty net) scored for the Blues, who mustered just eight shots on goal in the final two periods of the game. Robert Thomas had three assists.

Filip Forsberg (power play) scored for the Predators.

Faulk's goal with 9:30 remaining in the third period restored a two-goal Blues lead immediately after St. Louis killed Philip Broberg's hooking penalty. Schenn closed out the game with an empty-netter with 37 seconds left in the third period.

The Blues can now see the end of a busy stretch of scheduling in which they play 10 games in 17 days. They only have three more during that span (Tuesday vs. Montreal, Thursday at Nashville and Saturday at Colorado) before a slight reprieve.

Simmering tensions

Perhaps it’s the result of playing the same team twice in six days (with another matchup looming on Thursday), but the Blues and Predators have built some bad blood in a short period of time.

On Sunday, the first period alone featured elevated temperatures. Zack Bolduc finished his check on Spencer Stastney in the corner in the first three minutes of the game, drawing the attention on Andreas Englund and Kieffer Bellows with assorted slashes and crosschecks.

At 8:17 of the first period, Nathan Walker fought Nashville’s Zachary L’Heureux after Walker finished his check at the offensive blue line, a fight that included both players landing punches simultaneously. It was the Blues’ sixth fight in the last five games, and gave them 22 on the season. Five of them belong to Walker.

The emotions rose again with two seconds left in the period, and Predators forward Jonathan Marchessault in the middle of it all. In one corner, Marchessault was hit by Alexey Toropchenko, and responded by crosschecking and slashing Toropchenko away from the play. As that was happening, Broberg was called for tripping Michael McCarron at the net-front.

Broberg touched the puck to draw the whistle, and then Marchessault launched himself at Broberg, setting off a scuffle in the corner. In the end, the Blues were left shorthanded with Broberg’s tripping minor and offsetting roughing minors for Marchessault and Toropchenko.

Blues coach Jim Montgomery even came to the bench early before the start of the second period to discuss the sequence with officials.

Nashville scored on the ensuing power play when Forsberg scored 64 seconds into the period with a shot between the legs of Ryan Suter. The goal snapped a streak of 12 straight kills for the Blues penalty kill.

Tempers flared again late in the third period. Walker and McCarron were issued 10-minute misconducts for pushing and shoving after the whistle.

With 6:27 remaining in the game, Predators defenseman Nick Blankenburg attempted to hit Thomas at center ice, which drew the attention of Bolduc. Bolduc crosschecked Blankenburg multiple times in the back while he was on the ice, drawing a major for crosschecking and a game misconduct.

Kyrou reaches 30 … again

Kyrou scored his 30th goal of the season at 12:13 of the first period to give the Blues a 1-0 lead, marking the third straight season Kyrou has had at least 30 goals and 30 assists. Kyrou quickly shot a drop pass from Robert Thomas, appearing to catch Justus Annunen off guard and sneaking into the net.

Kyrou is one of just seven NHL players to record 30-goal, 30-assist seasons in each of the last three seasons, joining Leon Draisaitl, David Pastrnak, William Nylander, Brayden Point, Sam Reinhart and Jake Guentzel.

The goal extended Kyrou’s point streak to six games.

Thomas picked up his second assist of the evening by setting up Texier’s power-play goal with 3:03 remaining in the first period. Dalibor Dvorsky slipped a pass to Bolduc, who swept a backhand to Thomas in the left circle and he found just enough of Texier’s stick on the back post.

Thomas appeared to score just 10 seconds into the third period at the net-front, but officials whistled the puck covered by Annunen before Thomas flipped the puck into the net. Annunen tried to cover the puck, but it was poked loose to Thomas by Jake Neighbours.

Personnel changes

Dvorsky made his NHL debut on Sunday night after he was recalled from AHL affiliate Springfield on Saturday night. Dvorsky, the No. 10 pick in the 2023 draft, centered Texier and Mathieu Joseph on the third line.

Dvorsky replaced Oskar Sundqvist in the lineup as Sundqvist was held out for maintenance reasons. Montgomery said Sundqvist wasn’t supposed to play Saturday’s game against Chicago, but had to because Pavel Buchnevich missed the game because of illness. Earlier this season, Sundqvist only played one part of a back-to-back to help recover from his knee surgery, and Montgomery said this fell into that same boat.

Buchnevich, meanwhile, missed his second game sick and Montgomery labeled him day-to-day.

Nick Leddy was also out of the lineup for maintenance reasons, the team said, and he was replaced by Matthew Kessel on a defensive pairing with Cam Fowler. By playing on Sunday night, Kessel reached 70 games played and is no longer waivers exempt. If the Blues want to send him to the AHL in the future, he would have to pass through waivers first.

____

©2025 STLtoday.com. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.