Jake Neighbours, Joel Hofer lead Blues to first win of season by beating Flames, 4-2

Matthew DeFranks, St. Louis Post-Dispatch on Oct 11, 2025

Published in Hockey

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The St. Louis Blues picked up their first win of the season on Saturday afternoon, beating the Flames 4-2 in Calgary.

Jake Neighbours scored twice, including the game-winning goal in the third period, and Joel Hofer made 27 saves to pace the Blues. Robert Thomas (power play) and Pius Suter also scored for the Blues, who improved to 1-1-0.

Matt Coronato scored both goals for the Flames.

The Blues bounced back from a 5-0 shutout loss to Minnesota in the season opener on Thursday, and will continue their road trip on Monday in Vancouver.

Hofer keeps Blues alive

Hofer was the main reason why the Flames weren’t able to pull away from the Blues in the second period, as he stopped 13 of the 14 shots he faced in the middle period, including a handful of Grade-A scoring chances around the crease.

Two minutes into the period, Joel Farabee hit the left goalpost, and then Hofer cleaned up the rebound from Yegor Sharangovich. About two minutes later, Samuel Honzek drove to the net but his backhand couldn’t beat Hofer. He pushed left to right to deny Calgary of a prime scoring chance on the power play. When Honzek slipped down to the backdoor, Hofer shut him down with a left pad save. Hofer went left to right again to deny Farabee on a rush chance.

Hofer’s lone blemish in the second period was Coronato’s second goal of the afternoon, as Coronato ripped a shot over Hofer’s shoulder with 5:03 left in the period to tie the game at 2.

According to MoneyPuck, the Flames generated 2.424 expected goals in the second period, and Hofer allowed just one.

Hofer’s heroics allowed the Blues enough grace to tie the game with Neighbours’ goal at 12:41 and then take the lead with Thomas’ power-play goal at 14:25.

Penalty-a-palooza

Saturday’s affair was a constant parade to the penalty box for both teams.

The game never went more than 7:56 between penalties in the first two periods. Overall, the Blues were called for six minor penalties and the Flames for four of them. Calgary went 1 for 6 on the power play, and the Blues countered with a 1 for 4 effort themselves.

The primary offense? Tripping.

Philip Broberg, Pavel Buchnevich, Suter, Blake Coleman and Connor Zary were all called for tripping penalties at some point Saturday. Nick Bjugstad, Colton Parayko and Mikael Backlund were assessed holding minors, plus transgressions on Thomas (slashing) and Nazem Kadri (hooking).

Because there were so many penalties, plenty of Blues saw action on the kill. In fact, only Jimmy Snuggerud, Jordan Kyrou, Neighbours and Bjugstad did not play shorthanded.

Tyler Tucker got in the first fight of the Blues season when he scrapped with Flames forward Ryan Lomberg in the second period.

Adjustments pay off

For the second straight game, Blues coach Jim Montgomery moved Neighbours up to the top line with Thomas and Buchnevich. It resulted in a pair of goals for Neighbours.

Neighbours scored the first Blues goal of the season when he skated hard to the net and swept a shot through Dustin Wolf. The play originated with Justin Faulk’s standup at the St. Louis blue line, went up the ice to Buchnevich, then Thomas, who found Neighbours in the middle of the ice.

Neighbours scored again in the third period by tipping Colton Parayko’s point shot following Thomas’ faceoff win. The goal at 11:07 of the period gave the Blues a 3-2 lead.

Suter scored the first goal of his Blues career just 2:26 after Neighbours’ goal, as he also deflected a point shot, this time by Tyler Tucker as St. Louis took a 4-2 lead.

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