Blues notch 7th win in 9 games as they top Flames, 5-3

ST. LOUIS — Thursday night was an odd one, but the Blues will take it.

The 5-3 win over the Flames had almost everything.

An adventurous goal-scoring bonanza. Two disallowed Calgary goals. An assist by a goaltender. A fight. The end of two major Blues droughts. A near hat trick.

In the end, the win was the Blues' seventh in the past nine games as they try to chase down Vegas for an unlikely playoff spot in the Western Conference. Pavel Buchnevich (twice), Zack Bolduc, Jake Neighbours and Brandon Saad scored for the Blues as they received 23 saves and two assists from Jordan Binnington.

Andrei Kuzmenko scored twice, and Jonathan Huberdeau added another for the Flames.

Saad's goal 2:04 into the third period gave the Blues a 4-3 lead just moments after Kuzmenko's goal was disallowed due to a high stick. Saad's goal also came minutes before Rasmus Andersson's wraparound was taken off the board by a successful Blues challenge for offside.

Buchnevich ends drought

When Buchnevich scored in the second period to give the Blues a 3-2 lead, he grabbed the imaginary monkey on his back and chucked it into the front row behind the glass. It snapped a 13-game goalless streak and was his first tally since Feb. 28 at Edmonton.

Buchnevich beat Dustin Wolf from the left dot on a shot that glanced off Wolf’s glove before finding the back of the net. It came on the power play, a four-minute one given to the Blues after Nazem Kadri took a double-minor for high-sticking Scott Perunovich.

When the penalty was announced over the public address system, Kadri was booed by the Enterprise Center crowd, which has become customary since his playoff battles with the Blues as a member of the Colorado Avalanche.

For Buchnevich, he still had eight points during his 13-game drought, and his goal was his 200th point as a member of the Blues in his 207th game. Buchnevich is the second-quickest Blues player to reach 200 points with the team, trailing just Keith Tkachuk, who did it in 204 games.

In his office

Neighbours scored his 26th goal of the season 3:27 into the second period to tie the game at 2. Of course, it came from right in front of the opposing goal mouth.

On a Colton Parayko shot from the point that went off Robert Thomas, Neighbours was waiting at the net to shovel home a rebound that gave him the team lead in goals this season. Thomas, meanwhile, notched his first primary point at five on five since Feb. 22. It was his first point at five on five in exactly a month.

Following Buchnevich’s goal, Kuzmeno tied the game at 3 with his second goal of the game with 3:10 left in the second period. Kuzmenko deflected Kadri’s backhand from the slot that beat Binnington.

In the first period, Kuzmenko scored after Justin Faulk coughed up the puck around his own net and Kuzmenko roofed a shot past Binnington. Kuzmenko nearly had a hat trick twice as well. He tried going between his legs late in the second period in tight on the Blues goal. In the third period, his would-be goal was called off as officials ruled he played the puck with a high stick.

Bolduc gets his second

Blues rookie forward Bolduc scored his second career NHL goal and his first at home. Bolduc finished slickly with a backhand between Wolf’s legs after Alexey Toropchenko spotted him driving to the net.

Bolduc also jump-started the play through the neutral zone with a rink-wide pass to Toropchenko that gave the Blues numbers on the rush. Binnington picked up the secondary assist on the play, as his outlet pass diffused the Flames forecheck. It was Binnington’s sixth career assist, and his seventh came on Buchnevich's empty-netter.

Ongoing feud?

For the second time in two seasons, Blues forward Nathan Walker got in a fight with ... Joel Hanley?

Walker and Hanley dropped the gloves in the second period on Thursday night, about 17 months after the two fought when Hanley was playing for the Stars. Hanley was claimed by Calgary earlier this season when Dallas waived him.

For Walker, it was his second fight of the season. His first came on March 16 with Mason Shaw of Minnesota.