3 Takeaways from Blues 5-0 win over Lightning

The St. Louis Blues continued their hot streak on Tuesday with a dominating 5-0 victory over the Tampa Bay Lightning at the Enterprise Center.

St. Louis has won five of its last six games and is 6-2-0 at home this season. The Blues are starting to look more like the team that has been a mainstay in the Stanley Cup Playoffs prior to missing it last year.

"It's a team you're proud to be a part of," said Jordan Binnington, who has been the Blues' goalie since their championship-winning 2018-19 season. "It's been a month or two of just working hard and buying in and it's nice to see some results coming our way."

Binnington made 30 saves for the Blues, while Lightning goalie Jonas Johansson stopped 24 of St. Louis' 29 shots on goal. The Blues have won three straight while the Bolts have lost three straight.

Here are three takeaways from the Blues win over the Lightning:

__Score first, win always__

The Blues took control of the game early with a wrist-shot goal by defenseman Colton Parayko 11 minutes into the first period. St. Louis has scored first in seven games so far this season and has won all of them.

"It's always good to get on the board early," Blues head coach Craig Berube said. "I think it really creates momentum with your team. I love the way we're playing the start of games right now, direct, putting pucks in deep and going to work and kind of creating that forecheck and that work mentality right away in a game."

St. Louis is 1-5-1 in games where the opponent scores first.

__Strike twice Lightning quick__

Blues forwards Jordan Kyrou and Jakub Vrana scored 19 seconds apart in the second period to put the game out of reach for Tampa Bay.

Both goals were assisted by defenseman Torey Krug, who now has five assists on the season for the Blues.

"It’s just a chemistry play with (Kyrou)," Krug said. “We’ve talked over the years. If he sees that I get the puck in transition, he can take off and I’ll try to get it to him. Obviously, he saw open ice and he made a great move on the breakaway. The other goal, you’ve got to give Vrana a lot of credit because I don’t think there’s many guys in the league that score off that pass with his release.”

Chemistry definitely had a big role in the Blues' scoring on Tuesday.

"I knew he saw me and I was ready for it," Vrana said of Krug's assist. "It was a great pass."

__What happened to the Lightning?__

Kasperi Kapanen scored an empty net goal in the third period and Kyrou scored his second goal in the final minute to ice the win for St. Louis.

With the loss, Tampa Bay fell to 6-6-4 and tied with the Montreal Canadiens for fifth place in the Atlantic Division. A team that has been to the Stanley Cup Final three straight seasons (winning two) before last season, and has all of their top players on the ice, has been scuffling as of late, losing six of their last eight games.

“People are going to look and say we've been shutout the last couple of games,” Lightning coach Jon Cooper said. “The problem is, it's not our offense. We're giving up gifts, and we're having good stretches in the game. That's been the story this year.”

__Extra Note__

Blues center Robert Thomas assisted in Parayko's first-period goal, which means he has registered at least one point in each game during the month of November, with five goals and six assists.

Even though the goal streak ended on Saturday, Thomas is still Mr. November on Ice.