either a stay-at-home defenseman or a third-line or

WASHINGTON (AP) — Three’s a relief for the St. Louis Blues.Thanks to three goals in under five minutes www.goldenknightsshoponline.com , St. Louis beat the defending Stanley Cup champion Washington Capitals 4-1 Monday night to put together its first three-game winning streak of the season.The Blues were the only team in the NHL not to win three in a row, and after a rough start are now just three points out of the final playoff spot in the Western Conference.“It took a while,” said winger David Perron, who has five goals and nine assists during his career-best 11-game point streak. “It’s a lot of steps in the right direction, and I think we can start feeling that our games are getting important.”This game featured goals by Ivan Barbashev, Vince Dunn and Perron in a span of 4:42 to bounce back from Alex Ovechkin’s league-leading 33rd goal of the season. Dunn banked the puck in on a double deflection for his first goal since October and assisted on Perron’s goal with a back-handed pass from along the boards.Just as Dunn dealt with some frustrating times during his 33-game goal drought, St. Louis is finally feeling good and getting rewarded. With the victory, the Blues climbed above .500 at 13-11-1 since interim coach Craig Berube took over for Mike Yeo.“We’re really building confidence,” Dunn said. “I think we’re now kind of all buying in together, we’re playing as a team and everyone’s really doing their part.”And the Blues are getting good goaltending. Following the lead of rookie Jordan Binnington, who went 3-0-0 last week, Jake Allen made 28 saves to pick up his first victory since Jan. 3 — which also came against the Capitals.Vladimir Tarasenko scored on the power play in the third period and has eight goals in his past eight games. St. Louis has won six of its past seven on the road, and Allen is among the league’s best goalies away from home.“Ask my magic genie,” Allen said. “I guess it’s fun shutting teams down in their own building. I’ll take it.”Ovechkin took over sole possession of sixth in NHL history with his 238th career power-play goal and tied Dave Andreychuk at 14th on the all-time list with the 640th goal of his career. But that was little consolation for the Capitals after a flat performance in their second consecutive loss.“We didn’t play the right way Vegas Golden Knights T-Shirts Womens , we didn’t play well and you can see the result,” Ovechkin said. “It was bad play, bad game.”Capitals backup Pheonix Copley allowed four goals on 37 shots in his first game against his former team. Copley got the start over All-Star Braden Holtby, who injured his left eye Saturday when he took a stick to the face through his mask.This game wasn’t as much on Copley as an example of the Blues showing they might be the playoff contender they were supposed to be before the season.“That’s our goal,” center Ryan O’Reilly said. “We’re fighting to get in. We have an opportunity here and that’s what we want.”NOTES: With two assists, O’Reilly now has seven in his past seven games. … Capitals D Brooks Orpik played in his 1,000th regular-season game. Orpik is the first player in NHL history to reach 1,000 with fewer than 20 career goals. … Copley was originally signed by Washington, traded to St. Louis in 2015 and traded back in 2017. … Capitals 2013 draft pick Zach Sanford, who went to the Blues in the 2017 trade between the teams, played his first game against Washington.UP NEXTBlues: Binnington is expected to start in goal when they visit the New York Islanders on Tuesday.Capitals: Look to end their two-game skid when they travel to Nashville to face the Predators on Tuesday. DALLAS (AP) A year after shaking up his team with trades at the draft that altered the landscape of the NHL, Stan Bowman isn’t letting on that he’ll make the same kinds of moves now.”I learned to never try to predict the future,” the Chicago Blackhawks general manager said. ”It’s difficult to predict the magnitude of changes as we go forward.”With teams like the Blackhawks eager to get back to the playoffs, the New York Rangers always in position to make a splash and plenty of big-name players in trade discussions Vegas Golden Knights Hoodies Womens , it’s hard to predict but easy to expect an eventful weekend of movement. Ottawa captain and No. 1 defenseman Erik Karlsson, Montreal winger Max Pacioretty, Buffalo center Ryan O’Reilly and Pittsburgh winger Phil Kessel are among the stars being bandied about in trade talk that could come to a head at or before the first round of the draft Friday night.”There’s been a lot of chatter this week,” Edmonton Oilers GM Peter Chiarelli said Thursday. ”We’re involved in a lot of the chatter. I’ve said publicly we’d put our (10th overall) pick in play particularly for a defenseman. That, of course, has led to teams asking what we would put in play for. There’s been discussions on that.”A lot of discussions are ongoing on the trade front apart from the draft itself, which is expected to feature smooth-skating Swedish defenseman Rasmus Dahlin going first to Buffalo, Russian winger Andrei Svechnikov second to Carolina and a whole lot of uncertainty after that.GMs finally got some certainty on the 2018-19 salary cap when the NHL and NHLPA announced it would be $79.5 million with a floor of $58.8 million. As Bowman said, the $4.5 million increase is ”better than it staying flat,” and it gives teams more room to maneuver on re-signing players or exchanging them.Aside from the deadline, there’s no better time of the year for trades than the draft, right ahead of the free agent negotiating period next week and with free agency opening July 1. Karlsson is the most attractive target by far because he can be a free agent a year from now, but the Senators aren’t showing their hand.”We have a good game plan,” Ottawa GM Pierre Dorion said. ”We aren’t going to talk (publicly) about specific players Vegas Golden Knights Hats Womens , i.e., Mark Stone, Cody Ceci, Chris Wideman, Erik Karlsson.”Florida’s Dale Tallon said he had spoken to about a dozen fellow GMs and is hearing mostly talk about so-called ”hockey trades” that are neither buying nor selling moves. Because players like O’Reilly and Kessel have many years left on their contracts, they’re more complicated moves.”Most of those big names are tied up for a long time,” Tallon said. ”I haven’t heard a lot about big names. It’s mostly deals that fill needs for teams, either a stay-at-home defenseman or a third-line or a fourth-line guy or a specialty player of some sort. Somebody’s trying to shake things up.”Shake things up? Sounds like the Rangers in most years, though they’ve gone into rebuilding mode after a fire sale at the trade deadline. They’re usually involved in rumors on big players, but GM Jeff Gorton wants to quell the speculation that he’s going all-in on trying to win now.”We’re going to investigate everything,” Gorton said. ”That’s what the job is. That’s what we want to do. If there is an opportunity to get a player and the price wasn’t too high then we’re going to look at it, but for anybody that would be skeptical of a rebuild all you have to do is look at the last several months and over the trade deadline some of the things we’ve done. I think it’s pretty obvious that we’re trying to accumulate young players and assets and trying to get better and going to give these players an opportunity.”—