Perron leads Blues past Hurricanes

RALEIGH, N.C. (AP)—St. Louis Blues coach Andy Murray says there’s no secret to his team’s road success early this season.

“The bottom line is we just haven’t been very good at home,” Murray said Wednesday night after the Blues improved to 3-1-1 on the road with a 5-2 victory over the Carolina Hurricanes. “All the arenas are all new and all generic. You don’t have a lot of differences. So, to me, there isn’t a real home advantage for a lot of the teams.”

That undoubtedly was the case at the RBC Center, where the Blues came out strong, taking a 3-0 lead and then relying on goalie Chris Mason(notes) to extend Carolina’s winless streak to seven games.

David Perron(notes) had two goals, Yan Stastny(notes) and Jay McClement(notes) scored 16 seconds apart, and Mason made 34 saves.

Perron said the Blues (5-4-1) haven’t done anything special to excel away from St. Louis.

“I think it’s just working harder than the other team,” Perron said. “Even though we got outshot, the two points is what we needed to get. We just have to keep playing like that.”

Stastny and McClement scored consecutively later in the first, marking the fifth time this season the Hurricanes allowed two goals in a less than a minute.

“You can’t break down defensively the way we did,” Carolina coach Paul Maurice said. “We haven’t respected the defensive part of the game.”

Andy McDonald(notes) made it 4-1 with his fourth goal of the season, taking a feed from Keith Tkachuk(notes) and beating Cam Ward(notes), who allowed four goals on 17 shots before Perron scored an empty-netter.

“That goal was a big one, because they were pressing us at the time,” Murray said.

Mason was solid in the net for the Blues, who won despite allowing Carolina eight power-play chances. Both goals, by Joe Corvo(notes) and Scott Walker(notes), came on the power play.

“He’s the main reason we came back last year and made the playoffs,” Perron said about Mason. “He’s gotten off to a great start, and he’s our best player every night. We’ve got to have him like that all year.”

NOTES: St. Louis is scoreless in its last 17 power plays after going 0-for-1 on Wednesday. … St. Louis’ last win at the RBC Center was in January 2003. … Carolina dropped to 0-4-2 this season when allowing the first goal. … The Hurricanes (2-6-3) are 0-4-3 in their last seven games.