NHL scores 2017: Mike Yeo’s coaching tenure with the Blues starts with a convincing win

The St. Louis Blues aren’t a bad team. Sure they traded away one half of their working goaltender tandem and their former captain among others in the offseason, but some pieces are there. Unfortunately, it’s been a rough ride this year and it cost Ken Hitchcock his job a few months earlier than expected.

The team was clearly checked out on Hitchcock in his lame duck year, with just 53 points in 50 games after going over 100 just a year ago. Jake Allen and backup Carter Hutton have been unreliable, posting a combined .896 save percentage. The Blues started to play for themselves and not for the team, and finally general manager Doug Armstrong had enough.

Mike Yeo took over behind the bench officially on Thursday and hey, the Blues looked like their old selves! Allen allowed one goal late in the first, but recovered and held his ground to blank the Maple Leafs for the remaining 45 minutes, a good sign for the shaky netminder.

St. Louis scored five straight, using their overpowering forecheck to cause havoc and create Maple Leafs’ turnovers, which they then turned to goals.

It wasn’t perfect, but it didn’t have to be for St. Louis. Three second period goals were a lead Toronto couldn’t come back from, and the Blues played keep away in the final frame to get the win for their new head coach.

It remains to be seen if this is The Wake Up Call for the Blues to get them into playoff positioning, but it’s a start St. Louis certainly needed to get them on that track.

Flyers 3, Canadiens 1
Rangers 2, Sabres 1 (OT)
Senators 5, Lightning 2
Predators 2, Oilers 0
Jets 4, Stars 3
Blackhawks 4, Coyotes 3
Blues 5, Maple Leafs 1
Sharks 4, Canucks 1

1. Patrick Marleau has joined a very elite club

With much less fanfare than Alex Ovechkin last year, Marleau netted his 500th career NHL goal on Thursday to help the Sharks best the Canucks. The former captain for San Jose wasted hardly any time getting to No. 500 on a 2-on-1 with Joe Pavelski.

Marleau has been with the Sharks for all 19 years of his NHL career, and he’s become just the 45th player in league history to hit that mark. An incredible accomplishment on a stellar hockey career.

2. The Jets are streaking

After holding off the Stars in a nail-biter 4-3, the Jets have won their last three had are on a bit of a roll. More impressive for the Jets is that they’ve bested three difficult Central Division teams on the road during this span, with just one more game in Colorado to go. Ondrej Pavelec, for one of the first times since his call up, really stole the game for Winnipeg, as he stopped 39 in the win on Thursday.

3. Tampa Bay continued to fall apart

It’s not looking good for the Lightning, who gave up five goals to the Senators en route to their sixth loss in their past seven games. Andrei Vasilevskiy allowed four goals in the loss as the Lightning have slid further down the standings to eight points out of a wild card position.

The Senators, meanwhile are still playing well enough to keep ahold of their second place Atlantic spot as they have found their scoring touch.

The Rangers stole the extra point from the Sabres with this goal from Chris Kreider in overtime.

The Flyers have won four of their last five after besting the Canadiens 3-1 on home ice. Matt Read broke a 26-game goalless drought for the game winner to help the Flyers right the ship after a bad four-goal loss to the Hurricanes on Tuesday.