ST. LOUIS -- Early in the season, the St. Louis Blues couldn't tell anyone what a close, competitive game was.
They were either blowing the brakes off the opponent or having the brakes blown off them. It was evident early if they would win or lose.
Not anymore.
Not close and competitive, the Blues are finding ways to win, down or ahead, and continued their season-high with five straight wins and third in a row in overtime, and all by 4-3 scores, including Sunday against the Los Angeles Kings at Enterprise Center.
It's the fourth straight 4-3 win for the Blues (26-20-2), who moved into a tie with the Kings (22-15-10) for points (54) and into a wild card spot in the Western Conference. St. Louis is now 12-1-2 in one-goal games, and and after having just four in the first two months of the season, one-goal games are becoming a norm, and by staying in the fight longer, the Blues are becoming quite resilient.
"You're going to have to now," said Blues captain Brayden Schenn, who scored his second OT winner in three games. "These last however many games we have here, it's tight, a lot of overtime games and not a lot of room when you go into the third period and you're seeing it league wide."
Let's take a look at the three keys from another tight victory:
1. More overtime magic -- There's something about the extra five minutes and 3-on-3 that's making the Blues tick.
They're now 5-0 in games when they end in overtime after Schenn scored his second in five days.
The one point serves the Blues well in any circumstance because they need all the points they can get, but they continue to stay aggressive for the extra point.
"After Christmas, we feel like we've got something brewing in here," Schenn said. "We're believing in one another, we're playing hard for one another and guys are doing the little things like blocking shots or selfless line changes that are setting up the next guys. Guys are getting rewarded like that too. When you start to build stuff like that, that's when the wins come and it's just not by guys doing it by themselves. It's nice to see everyone getting rewarded."
2. Goaltending continues to come up big -- Whether it's Jordan Binnington or Sunday like Joel Hofer, who made 29 saves, the Blues' tendys are keeping them in games.
Hofer, who improved to 9-8-0 on the season and was also in goal for the 4-3 OT win at Vancouver last Wednesday, made a number of key saves in the game, including one on Phillip Danault sprawled out in the third period to keep it a 3-3 game.
"They've been keeping us in every game, I guess essentially," Blues defenseman Colton Parayko said. "It's fun to play in front of them when they're making big saves, great timing saves too. Just to have that confidence with those two guys behind us has been great for our group too and they are a big part of why we have five (wins) in a row. A lot of fun playing in front of them and we'll try and do what we can to make it as easy as possible for them."
3. Staying disciplined -- While the Kings were busy putting the Blues on the power play six times, the Blues essentially stayed out of the box.
Almost.
Parayko took the only minor of the game for the Blues 27 seconds in for hooking, but after that, that was it.
The influx of guys going to the box seemed to throw the Kings out of rhythm, and although L.A. did get a shorthanded goal, the Blues did counter with a power-play goal and 12 power-play shots in the game with a few near-misses against the league's No. 1 penalty kill, including one by Robert Thomas in the bumper slot with 5:45 remaining that required a terrific glove save by David Rittich.
