WINNIPEG Adidas Paul Carey Jersey , Manitoba (AP) One impressive burst was enough for the St. Louis Blues.Vladimir Tarasenko scored two goals, and the Blues used a big push in the second period to beat the Winnipeg Jets 5-2 on Friday night.St. Louis had dropped seven of its last eight meetings against Winnipeg, including all five games last season. The Blues and Jets split a pair of shutouts in mid-December.”This team has pretty much spanked us around the last three years,” said Jake Allen, who had 20 saves for St. Louis. ”They beat us every time last year. We had a win at the start of the year, but they pretty much spanked us both those games so we needed to show them that we’re not intimidated.”Tarasenko, Patrik Berglund and Alexander Steen scored in a 7 1/2-minute span of the second, helping St. Louis open a 3-0 lead. Tarasenko added his 23nd goal in the third after Winnipeg had pulled within one. Brayden Schwartz scored into an empty net and had an assist.Kyle Connor and Patrik Laine scored for the Jets (32-14-9), who lost an eight-game point streak (6-0-2). The result also stopped Winnipeg’s home point streak at 10 games.”Nobody is in a good mood and you’re angry with it. You don’t like to get beat like that,” Winnipeg coach Paul Maurice said. ”We got beat in St. Louis and played one hell of a game. We weren’t any good tonight and didn’t deserve to win the game.”St. Louis (34-20-3) was coming off a 6-1 victory over Colorado on Thursday night.Connor Hellebuyck made 22 saves for the Jets, who were playing their fifth game of a 10-game homestand (3-1-1).Winnipeg had Mark Scheifele back on the ice for his first game since a Dec. 27 upper-body injury. The top-line center had missed 16 games.”Had to shake off a little bit of rust early Adidas Chris Tierney Jersey , but felt better and better as the game went on and got more comfortable,” Scheifele said.The Blues went ahead to stay when Brayden Schenn got the puck in the corner and passed it out to Tarasenko in the circle, and he fired a high shot past Hellebuyck’s blocker side at 4:18. It was Tarasenko’s first goal in seven games.Berglund redirected in a shot by defenseman Robert Bortuzzo at 10:13, and then Steen one-timed a rebound that went by Hellebuyck at 11:39.Connor got the Jets on the board with 2:27 left in the period when his one-timer from the slot went off Blues defenseman Vince Dunn and past Allen for his 18th goal.The Jets had a pair of power plays midway through the third period and Laine made good on the second one, blasting a high shot past Allen at 11:39. But Tarasenko responded with his second of the game just over a minute later.”(Laine) shoots the puck harder than anyone in the league,” Allen said. ”I’d put him up there against anyone. It’s not even close.”(His shot) was sort of through a few bodies so I didn’t really get a good pick up on it, but still he’s got the laser.”With the Jets on the power play, Schwartz scored his 17th of the season into the empty net to make it 5-2.NOTES: The Blues’ record when leading after two periods this season climbed to 26-0-1.UP NEXTBlues: Host Pittsburgh on Sunday.Jets: Host the New York Rangers on Sunday. WASHINGTON (AP) The Vegas Golden Knights have long embraced their status as unheralded underdogs, from their very first game as an NHL expansion team in October through their stunning dismantling of Winnipeg in the Western Conference Final.”We call ourselves the Golden Misfits for a reason,” winger Ryan Reaves said prior to the Stanley Cup Final series against Washington. ”We’ve proven everyone else wrong all season.”Vegas entered the Final as favorites over the Capitals, who broke into the league in 1974 and are still in search of their first championship. The Golden Knights won the opener Adidas Gabriel Gagne Jersey , but after dropping two in a row they find themselves playing a familiar role as they prepare for Game 4 on Monday night.”We’re still underdogs,” left wing David Perron said. ”They’re a great team over there. Now the pressure is on them to keep going. We’re going to find a way to answer.”The Capitals got caught up in a fast-paced, fire-at-will contest in Game 1, and Vegas rolled to a 6-4 victory. Washington made the adjustment in Game 2 and won 3-2, then gripped the defensive clamp even tighter Saturday night in a 3-1 win.Now, mired in their initial losing streak of the playoffs and trailing 2-1 in games for the first time, the Golden Knights are desperate to become more effective pushing the puck toward the net.”We get it out on our blue line and we try to make a cross-ice play and they’re picking it off,” Reaves said. ”Their transition game is good. We’re getting to their blue line and we’re trying get cute again instead of doing what works. With this team, that’s getting it in and then going to work.”The Capitals know this, and they have taken great strides to shackle a team that averaged 3.31 goals per game during the regular season, tied for fourth in the NHL.”Offensive teams have certain tendencies Adidas Mikkel Boedker Jersey , certain routes that they take through the neutral zone, plays they like to make,” Washington defenseman Matt Niskanen said. ”So if you can be on top of them and turn over some pucks, stifle them, make it hard for them to gain entry with possession, that frustrates skilled players.”The Golden Knights mustered only 22 shots on goal in Game 3, with Tomas Nosek getting the lone score after Washington goaltender Braden Holtby did a miserable job of clearing the puck from behind his net.”They defended well. We were getting clogged up a little bit,” Vegas winger James Neal said. ”They sit back. We’ve got to get pucks to the net. We didn’t have enough shots. We didn’t have enough bodies going to the net. They out-battled us. We’re going to look at that and fix it.”That’s what Sunday’s skate was about. The Golden Knights understand the problem, and the task now is to correct the shortcoming.”We’ve just got to get back to our game, getting pucks deep and getting in on the forecheck,” defenseman Derek Engelland said. ”It’s been our key all season long Adidas James Van Riemsdyk Jersey , the five-man forecheck and five-guy pressure all over the ice.”Vegas doesn’t need a high-scoring, freestyle affair to win. The Golden Knights have a pair of 1-0 shutouts during the playoffs and have won twice when scoring only two goals.The key is to cut down on the mistakes. Golden Knights goaltender Marc-Andre Fleury stopped Alex Ovechkin at the end of a 2-on-1 rush early in the game, but the Capitals converted an odd-man blitz in the second period for a 2-0 lead.”Working hard to get down low, we just couldn’t hold onto it or make a big play, and the Capitals are going the other way,” Vegas center Ryan Carpenter said.It’s not by accident. Washington coach Barry Trotz changed things up after Game 1, and the results were profound.”There are things that they do that have given us some difficulties, and we’ve adjusted,” Trotz said. ”They’ll do the same.”The Capitals have fortified their defense, and Vegas now must find a way to penetrate the barrier. If it can do that, then Fleury will happily do his part in to help bring the series back to Las Vegas tied a two games apiece.”I have faith in these guys that they can do well Adidas Christian Folin Jersey , they can do what they’ve done for the past three rounds and all season long,” the goaltender said.What they’ve done, more often than not, is win when few thought they could.”We’ve been in situations like this before: adversity, have our backs against the wall a bit,” defenseman Luca Sbisa said. ”The belief in our group is still here. Just got to stick together.”—More Stanley Cup coverage: https://apnews.com/tag/StanleyCupFinals