WASHINGTON - Three's a relief for the St. Louis Blues.
Thanks to three goals in under five minutes, St. Louis beat the defending Stanley Cup champion Washington Capitals 4-1 Monday night to put together its first three-game winning streak of the season.
The Blues were the only team in the NHL not to win three in a row, and after a rough start are now just three points out of the final playoff spot in the Western Conference.
"It took a while," said winger David Perron, who has five goals and nine assists during his career-best 11-game point streak. "It's a lot of steps in the right direction, and I think we can start feeling that our games are getting important."
This game featured goals by Ivan Barbashev, Vince Dunn and Perron in a span of 4:42 to bounce back from Alex Ovechkin's league-leading 33rd goal of the season. Dunn banked the puck in on a double deflection for his first goal since October and assisted on Perron's goal with a back-handed pass from along the boards.
Just as Dunn dealt with some frustrating times during his 33-game goal drought, St. Louis is finally feeling good and getting rewarded. With the win, the Blues are 13-11-1 since interim coach Craig Berube took over for Mike Yeo.
"We're really building confidence," Dunn said. "I think we're now kind of all buying in together, we're playing as a team and everyone's really doing their part."
And the Blues are getting good goaltending. Following the lead of rookie Jordan Binnington, who went 3-0-0 last week, Jake Allen made 28 saves to pick up his first victory since Jan. 3 - which also came against the Capitals.
Vladimir Tarasenko scored on the power play in the third period as St. Louis has won six of its past seven on the road, and Allen is among the league's best goalies away from home.
"Ask my magic genie," Allen said. "I guess it's fun shutting teams down in their own building. I'll take it."
Ovechkin took over sole possession of sixth in NHL history with his 238th career power-play goal and tied Dave Andreychuk at 14th on the all-time list with the 640th goal of his career.
Capitals backup Pheonix Copley allowed four goals on 37 shots in his first game against his former team. This game wasn't as much on Copley as an example of the Blues showing they might be the playoff contender they were supposed to be before the season.
"That's our goal," center Ryan O'Reilly said. "We're fighting to get in. We have an opportunity here and that's what we want."
Notes: With two assists, O'Reilly now has seven in his past seven games. Capitals 2013 draft pick Zach Sanford, who went to the Blues in the 2017 trade between the teams, played his first game against Washington. Today, Binnington is expected to start in goal for the Blues when they visit the New York Islanders while the Capitals look to end their two-game skid when they travel to Nashville to face the Predators.