Avalanche vs Blues Game 2 score: Jordan Binnington’s 30 saves leads St. Louis to victory

Jordan Binnington’s 30 saves helped the St. Louis Blues to a 4-1 victory in Game 2 of their Western Conference semifinals against the Colorado Avalanche on Thursday night.

Colorado’s lone goal came in the third period when Avalanche winger Gabriel Landeskog cut the lead in half 1:49 into the third period. St. Louis would add two goals later in the period to put Colorado away.

“We played a connected hockey game,” Binnington said. “We talked about just controlling the puck and tracking back hard and trying to outnumber them all over the ice. We did a great job.”

Binnington had 51 saves in Game 1, but Colorado got the better of St. Louis in overtime.

The goaltender got help from the Blues’ offense. St. Louis broke through in the second period with a Jordan Kyrou goal 5:45 in. David Perron put the Blues up 2-0 on a power play and later 3-1 in the third period. Brandon Saad finished up the effort with a late goal.

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“We did a good job, and we forechecked hard tonight,” St. Louis coach Crag Berube said after the game, via NHL.com. “We put pucks to good areas and were on it. We had numbers on it all night and made them play in their own end and did a good job. When the puck turned over or they get their possession, we reloaded well, and I thought that we did a good job coming back in our own zone, protecting the middle ice, and our ‘D’ did a [heck] of a job of defending the rush, defending in our zone.

“We played good hockey all year. It’s a good group of guys that want to win. They know in Game 1 they didn’t do well enough, and all year they’ve responded when things [get hard]. You go over things and you tell them why and you show them why, and they respond.”

Perron has seven goals in the playoffs.

“That’s the playoffs right there for you – big roller coaster,” he said. “Obviously we didn’t feel good about ourselves that last game. We probably had two or three players that had good games. That was it. And tonight, we had a lot more guys and it was important to find a way to win one here on the road.”

Game 3 between the two teams is set for Saturday at 8 p.m. ET.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.