Schwartz scores twice, Blues beat Jets for 8th straight win

Dec 29, 2019 | 3:33 PM

ST. LOUIS — Jaden Schwartz scored twice and Jordan Binnington made 25 saves to help the St. Louis Blues beat the Winnipeg Jets 4-1 on Sunday for their season-best eighth straight victory.

Ryan O’Reilly and Robert Thomas also scored for St. Louis. The defending champion Blues improved to 26-8-6, outscoring opponents 32-16 during the winning streak. They had a seven-game streak Oct. 27-Nov. 9.

Nicholas Shore scored and Connor Hellebuyck made 24 saves for Winnipeg. The Jets have lost five of six to fall to 21-15-3.

Schwartz gave the Blues a 2-1 lead with 4:51 left in the second period, taking a feed from Jordan Kyrou on a two-on-one break and beating Hellebuyck through the legs. Schwartz added an empty-netter with 30 seconds remaining. He has 13 goals, two more than all of last season. In a six-game points streak, he has four goals and eight assists.

O’Reilly scored his first home goal of the season, pushing Alex Pietrangelo’s rebound stick-side past Hellebuyck with 5:42 left in the first. The assist was the 326th of Pietrangelo’s career, moving him past Al MacInnis atop the franchise leaderboard for defencemen.

Thomas made it 3-1 when he roofed a shot past Hellebuyck on a power play at 7:06 of the third.

Shore tied it at 1 at 5:40 of the second, one-timing a Logan Shaw’s feed past Binnington.

NOTES:

Binnington improved to 19-6-4. … Winnipeg lost for the first time in an afternoon game thus season after winning its first six matinees. … The Jets failed to score a power-play goal after having at least one in their previous three games.

UP NEXT:

Jets: At Colorado Tuesday night.

Blues: At Arizona on Tuesday night.

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David Solomon, The Associated Press