Steen gets 14th goal in Blues' 3-2 win
ST. LOUIS -- About the only person who is not excited about the way that St. Louis Blues left winger Alexander Steen has started this season is Steen himself.
Steen scored his league-leading 14th goal of the season -- in 14 games -- to lead the Blues to a 3-2 win over the Calgary Flames on Thursday night and extend his career-high point streak to nine games.
During that span, Steen has 10 goals and two assists. He is the first Blues player since 1990-91 to score 14 goals in the first 14 games. Future Hall of Famer Brett Hull had 16 goals in the first 14 games that season.
"He works his butt off and it's nice to see him get rewarded," Blues defenseman Jordan Leopold said. "Whatever he's doing, he just needs to keep doing it."
What Steen is doing is not talking, or thinking, about his personal performance, even if he did break a short-lived tie with Alexander Ovechkin of the Washington Capitals and Steven Stamkos of the Tampa Lightning, who each scored their 13th goal on Thursday night.
"It seems like everybody is looking for some miraculous change," Steen said. "I'm pretty much playing the same game. I think collectively as a group we're just hungry. We just want to win. It's a collective thing, not just one man.
"Obviously, it's enjoyable. I would be lying if I said it wasn't, but I am just having fun playing the game. You don't walk into the room thinking about those things. That's not the way it goes. You start thinking about stuff like that and It goes the other way. We're only 14 games into the season. We are going to stay grounded -- everybody."
Steen's goal off a perfect pass from T.J. Oshie in the second period increased the Blues' lead to 3-0 and turned out to be the winner after the Flames made the game close with two goals in the third period.
Instead of talking about the one goal, Steen actually was lamenting more missed chances.
"Oshie made a great play and I was all by myself in front of the net," Steen said. "I probably had three more opportunities I could have scored on. I had a couple I could have buried and I didn't."
The Blues' hot start was disrupted by six penalties that put the Flames on the power play. Even though Calgary did not score on any of those chances -- extending its slump to no goals in its last 28 man-advantage situations in the last nine games -- it took the Blues off their regular shifts.
"Our power play got some chances and we didn't convert, but I thought we worked extremely hard," said Calgary defenseman Chris Butler, a St. Louis native. "They're a great team at home; they get off to great starts. The crowd gets into it and you can tell they feed off that."
Flames coach Bob Harley knew his team was going to have trouble coming back after the Blues took a 2-0 lead in the first period on goals by Vladamir Tarasenko and Maxim Lapierre, even before Steen's goal made it 3-0. in part because of the struggling power play.
"I'd like to buy a power play goal now," Hartley said. "Guys are working hard, but it just doesn't seem like we can turn the red light on on the power play. We're going to keep working, and I hope we get some power play goals soon because they could make the difference in a game."
NOTES: Calgary G Reto Berra was originally selected by the Blues in the fourth round of the 2006 draft. He was part of the package that went from St. Louis to the Flames on April 1 in the deal that brought D Jay Bouwmeester to the Blues. ... The Flames said LW Curtis Glencross is expected to miss six weeks because of an MCL sprain suffered in their loss to Minnesota on Tuesday night. To replace Glencross, the Flames recalled C Max Reinhart from Abbotsford of the AHL. ... After starting Tuesday night's game on a line with LW Vladimir Sobotka and C Derek Roy, Oshie was back on the Blues' top line with C David Backes and Steen. RW Chris Stewart moved back to the second line. ... The Blues opened a five-game homestand. They will host the Pittsburgh Penguins on Saturday night. The Flames play at Colorado on Friday night.
