Sean Monahan has a goal and assist, Winnipeg wins 4th straight, 4-2 over St. Louis
WINNIPEG, Manitoba (AP) — Sean Monahan scored a goal and added an assist after missing a game because of an illness to help the Winnipeg Jets beat the St. Louis Blues 4-2 on Tuesday night and extend their win streak to four games.
Brenden Dillon, Kyle Connor and Alex Iafallo also scored for Winnipeg, which has won seven of its last eight games. Josh Morrissey and Nikolaj Ehlers each contributed two assists and Laurent Brossoit made 36 saves.
Iafallo ended a 20-game goal scoring drought.
“You go through slumps,” said Iafallo, who also didn’t register a point in nine straight games. “It sucks, you never want to do that. But at the same time, do anything to help the team out. You gotta play good defensively, blocking shots, whatever it is. I try to focus on that. If you’re not scoring, just focusing on the small things.”
Jets coach Rick Bowness praised the second line of Iafallo, Monahan and Ehlers.
“They were good the first night they played together. They were very good again tonight,” Bowness said. “You’ve got two very reliable players in Sean and Alex and it gives Nik a little more freedom out there. He’s better on that left side than he was on the right, and right now the line looks really good.”
Pavel Buchnevich and Brandon Saad scored for the Blues, who are 2-4-0 in their past six games. St. Louis goalie Joel Hofer made his first start in his hometown and stopped 28 shots.
“I think we played a decent game,” Buchnevich said of linemates Robert Thomas and Jordan Kyrou. “We got chances, but like I was saying, we’ve got to score goals, you know? But at least we got chances today and not like just on the power play.”
Monahan got the Jets on the board at 8:53. He has six goals in his past five games after registering no points in his first four games after being traded to Winnipeg from Montreal.
Dillon scored his career-high seventh goal of the season less than two minutes later through traffic.
“We know how good of a team they are off the rush, and how much skill they have,” he said. “So once we started to respect that, we started to use our size and grind it out down there, we saw the success we could have.”
Buchnevich cut into the lead 30 seconds later off a rebound for his 23rd, but Connor replied with his 24th at 15:33 to regain the two-goal advantage. Connor has scored in four straight games and extended his point streak to six games with five goals and six assists.
Saad used a bouncing puck to make the score 3-2 nine minutes into the second period, extending his point streak to four games.
Iafallo scored at 10:13 of the third when he used a puck that bounced off the end boards and put it by Hofer.
Winnipeg has won all three games against the Blues this season.
UP NEXT
Blues: Wrap up a three-game road trip at Edmonton on Wednesday.
Jets: Kick off a three-game road trip at Dallas on Thursday.