As Nathan Walker scraps, Blues show fight in win over Flames

The St. Louis Blues put out the Calgary Flames 5-3 on Thursday, March 28, in St. Louis. It was a game in which the player of the night neither looked for the net nor stood in front of it.

For the Blues, it looked like an inevitable loss after the Flames led 2-1 after the first period. After Zack Bolduc scored his second goal of the season to give the Blues the initial lead, the Flames responded with goals from Andrei Kuzmenko and Jonathan Huberdeau.

“We just didn’t look very sharp, mentally sharp, physically sharp,” Blues head coach Drew Bannister said. “To me, it just didn’t seem like we were on our game tonight.”

Everything seemed to change for the Blues after a spirited fight between St. Louis’ Nathan Walker and Calgary’s Joel Hanley.

“It was a big part of the game for us,” Bannister said.

The referees broke up the fight without either combatant falling to the ice, so while the battle was a draw, the war was won by Walker.

“We were a little bit flat,” Brendan Saad said. “He brought that passionate energy and you can see the whole bench being lit up there. So good things came after.”

Eight seconds after the fight woke up the Enterprise Center, Jake Neighbors scored his 26th goal of the season to tie the game 2-2 for the Blues. Walker’s actions swung the momentum toward the home team and the game became the Blues’ to lose.

“He’s a high-energy guy,” Neighbors said of Walker. “He brings it every single night and he brings a lot of emotion and energy to our team. So when you see him go out there and do something like that, it gets you going, gets your legs going a little bit more, and brings your adrenaline up.”

The 5’9” forward has been St. Louis’ unofficial enforcer recently. The 30-year-old Australian also tangled with Minnesota’s Mason Shaw during a 3-2 home win on March 17.

“I think he wants to scrap with guys more than the other way around,” Neighbors said of Walker. “Guys probably undermine him because he’s small but he’s a tough little bugger, and he knows what he’s doing there.”

The Blues extended Walker for two more years worth $775,000 per year in January. He has five goals and six assists for 11 points in 36 games this season but what he provides to the team is more intangible.

“Everybody loves him,” Blues forward Pavel Buchnevich said. “If you ask anybody on the team, he’s like the most favorite guy on the team. He’s funny, always a great attitude and I’m just happy for him.”

Buchnevich scored his first two goals of March at key points in the game. His first goal gave the Blues a 3-2 lead in the second period and his second came on an empty-netter to extinguish the Flames’ final hopes of coming back.

Saad also extended his recent goal streak to three straight games with a wrist shot two minutes into the third period to give the Blues a 3-4 lead. That lead was maintained after the Flames saw a pair of goals called back by the officials.

“Honestly, personally, I didn’t really know what was going on,” Neighbours said. “It was kind of crazy how they couldn’t review the one, and then we score, they tie it, it gets disallowed. It was a weird one.”

The Blues will conclude March with a home matchup against the San Jose Sharks, the worst team in the NHL, on Saturday, March 30. A win would give St. Louis (39-30-4) its 40th of the season. The Blues have been among the hottest teams in the league this month by going 10-3-1.

Yet no matter how well the Blues are playing, they remain five points behind the Los Angeles Kings for the final Western Conference playoff spot with nine games to go in the regular season.

“It’s tough to play catchup this time of year, but at the same time, for us, it’s just controlling the controllables and taking it one day at a time, one game at a time,” Saad said. “We’ll see how it plays out.”