Joel Hofer shines, Jordan Kyrou scratched as Blues beat Sabres, 3-0

Matthew DeFranks, St. Louis Post-Dispatch on Nov 6, 2025

Published in Hockey

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The alarm clock keeps going off. This time, the Blues did not hit snooze.

On a night when Jordan Kyrou was scratched, the Blues beat the Sabres, 3-0, for just their second win in the last 10 games. Joel Hofer made 27 saves in his first shutout of the season, while Mathieu Joseph (shorthanded), Nick Bjugstad and Justin Faulk (empty-net) each scored for the Blues.

“If you have competitive fire in your belly, struggles like this provide opportunities to grow stronger together when you face these (times) again," Blues coach Jim Montgomery told reporters in Buffalo before the game. "It’s going to happen again during the season. Right now, we’ve got to dig in and work our ways out of it. You’ve just got to dig in. If there’s a puck between you and I, I’m going to break your leg to get the puck. We have to have more of that mentality.”

The Blues (5-8-2) come home for a four-game homestand beginning Saturday against Seattle.

Kyrou scratched

Forward Jordan Kyrou was a healthy scratch Thursday night in Buffalo, an eye-opening move by Montgomery as the Blues entered with losses in eight of their past nine games. Kyrou entered the game first on the team in shot attempts, second in shots on goal, second in points and third in goals.

Kyrou and Oskar Sundqvist were both scratches up front, and Logan Mailloux sat out on the back end. Alexandre Texier, Joseph and Matthew Kessel were in the lineup in their places.

Reporters in Buffalo asked Montgomery before the game about his star players broadly.

“I think we all haven’t done the right things, played the right way during these challenging times,” Montgomery said. “I’m not going to single out stars. I’m not going to single out role players. I’m not going to single out coaches. I’m not going to single out myself. We’re all in this together, and you’ve got to work your way out of it together. It’s a team game, and we need to start looking like a team and competing like a team more often.”

Kyrou is in the third season of an eight-year contract with a cap hit of $8.125 million. He has a full no-trade clause through the 2029-30 season.

In the past three seasons, Kyrou has 104 goals, which is 31 more than the next-closest Blues player from 2022-25.

The decision on Kyrou followed another odd one by Montgomery: holding a morning skate in Buffalo. Typically, teams do not hold morning skates on the second day of a back-to-back. But the Blues landed in Buffalo at 1 a.m. from Washington and were on the ice 10 1/2 hours later.

“We needed to talk,” Montgomery told reporters in Buffalo. “We needed to meet. We needed to go on the ice and work a little bit because we didn’t work last night well enough as a group.”

Texier played on the top line with Robert Thomas and Pavel Buchnevich. Joseph skated with Bjugstad and Nathan Walker, while Kessel was paired on defense with Tyler Tucker.

Shorties galore

One night after the Blues’ only goal came shorthanded via Alexey Toropchenko, the Blues scored another short-handed goal Thursday night when Joseph gave them a 1-0 lead at 12:38 of the first period.

Joseph poked a puck free at the blue line, stripping Jack Quinn and springing himself on the rush. Joseph fended off a backcheck before beating Ukko-Pekka Luukkonen on the stick side with a forehand. It was Joseph’s second goal of the season.

The Joseph goal was only made possible by Hofer’s massive glove save on Josh Doan 22 seconds earlier. Hofer’s save drew a whistle, then Walker won a defensive-zone faceoff before Joseph’s pressure at the blue line forced a turnover.

The save set the tone for Hofer’s night, as he responded to his rough start of the season with his best game of the campaign. Since he allowed five goals in Pittsburgh on Oct. 27, Hofer has a .937 save percentage and 2.03 goals against average in three games.

Hofer made a big right pad save on Alex Tuch in the slot in the second period and also stoned Isak Rosen on a rebound chance early in the third.

Another one for Tucker

Tucker got into his fourth fight of the season on Thursday night, taking on O’Fallon, Mo., native Josh Dunne. Only one player (Anaheim’s Ross Johnston) has more fights than Tucker this season.

Tucker and Dunne were shown during pregame warmup talking to each other at the red line, and then they dropped the mitts at 6:32 of the first period.

This season, Tucker has fought Calgary’s Ryan Lomberg, Los Angeles’ Jeff Malott and Columbus’ Mathieu Olivier.

— Jimmy Snuggerud had a goal disallowed in the third period after it was ruled that he used a kicking motion to propel the puck past Luukkonen and inside the post.