Blues continue dominance of Ducks with 7-2 win, now tied for last playoff spot in West

Matthew DeFranks, St. Louis Post-Dispatch on Mar 16, 2025

Published in Hockey

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ST. LOUIS — Quick, name the last Blues goaltender to lose to the Anaheim Ducks.

Jordan Binnington? Joel Hofer? Thomas Greiss? Ville Husso? Charlie Lindgren?

Nope, it was Jon Gillies, and that should be an indication of just how long it’s been since the Ducks have beaten the Blues. With Sunday night’s 7-2 win over Anaheim, the Blues have now won their last 10 games against the Ducks, and continued their strong play since returning from the 4 Nations break in mid-February.

Brayden Schenn, Pavel Buchnevich, Dylan Holloway (power play), Radek Faksa, Mathieu Joseph (shorthanded), Jake Neighbours (power play) and Oskar Sundqvist (power play) all scored for the Blues. St. Louis improved to 8-2-2 since the break, and continued their push toward a playoff spot in the Western Conference.

With Vancouver’s regulation loss to Utah on Sunday, the Blues are tied at 73 points with the Canucks for the second wild-card spot in the West. Vancouver owns the tiebreaker since it has played one fewer game than St. Louis.

Cutter Gauthier scored twice for Anaheim.

Sunday’s game was moved from a 6 p.m. Et start to a 8 p.m. start since the Blues were forced to fly back to St. Louis from Minnesota on Sunday morning following plane issues on Saturday night.

“Since the break, no matter what has come up, and there’s always things that come up like that, it feels like no one even notices it and we march on,” Blues coach Jim Montgomery said before the game. “We use it as another challenge for us, it motivates us.”

The Blues’ 10-game win streak against Anaheim is the eighth time in franchise history that St. Louis has beat an opponent at least 10 straight times. The club record is 12, done against New Jersey (2014-2020), Arizona (2014-17) and Vancouver (1997-2000).

The Ducks haven’t beat the Blues since Dec. 12, 2021, which was Gillies’ only game in a Blues uniform.

A fitting night

On the night the Blues celebrated Schenn for playing in his 1,000th career game, he submitted a trademark performance, scoring a goal and getting in a fight in the first period on Sunday night.

The Blues honored Schenn with the customary gifts during a pregame ceremony – a painting from the Blues, a silver stick and crystal from the NHL, and a Rolex from his teammates. But they also wore special jerseys during warmup that all bore a “C” on their chest, 1,000 on the back and “Schenner” on the nameplate. Schenn was the only Blues player during warmup to wear his own jersey.

Schenn took just 41 seconds to score on the game’s first shift, driving the net and finishing off a setup from Holloway. Holloway deked around multiple Ducks defenders, and laid off a pass for Schenn to bury his 16th goal of the season, which was his 11th point in the last 11 games.

Schenn dropped the mitts defending Jordan Kyrou after Jacob Trouba delivered a shoulder to Kyrou’s right ear in the Blues zone. Trouba did not receive an additional penalty on the play, while Schenn was given an extra unsportsmanlike conduct minor plus the fighting major.

Kyrou did not play the final 2:37 of the first period, but returned after second intermission.

Schenn’s goal set the table for the Blues to jump out to a 2-0 lead with Pavel Buchnevich’s goal just 90 seconds into the game. Buchnevich skated towards the near post and deflected a centering pass from Neighbours.

Feeling special

Both of the Blues’ special teams units scored goals on Sunday night, the third time this season that St. Louis has scored both a power play goal and a shorthanded one.

Holloway’s power-play goal 8:19 into the second period gave the Blues a 3-0 lead on a one-timer from the right circle. It was Holloway’s sixth power-play goal of the season, and 22nd overall.

Joseph scored shorthanded with 1:50 left in the second period to give the Blues a 5-1 lead, beating Lukas Dostal clean on the rush after Oskar Sundqvist won a board battle to nudge the puck towards the blue line.

For good measure, Neighbours added another power-play goal at 6:18 of the third period for his 18th goal of the season. And Sundqvist tacked one on with 7:41 left in the third period for his sixth of the season.

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