Blues player of the game vs. Capitals: Colton Parayko

Sure, there are key points to making a case for the St. Louis Blues tendy, especially with the key sequence of saves he made against the Washington Capitals during a power play in the second period, but Saturday's 3-0 win in the return game of the home-and-home with the Capitals at Enterprise Center was a total team effort.

But defenseman Colton Parayko was yet again, all over it for the Blues (22-20-2).

He scored his first NHL shorthanded goal and it was a beauty in the first period, but heled a defensive group that really was on top of it from puck retrievals to zone exits to killing plays to helping sustain offensive zone shifts.

Parayko was a plus-1 in 21:23 with five shot attempts (three on goal), three takeaways and a blocked shot. But the fluidity of him killing plays throughout the night prevented the Capitals from sustaining any kind of zone time.

"I thought we did a good job of getting back and then obviously it's a five-man thing where our forwards did a great job getting in front of guys and I think we talked about that coming through the neutral zone, just getting guys a little bit and giving us 'D' a little bit more time," Parayko said. "They did a great job for us. When we get the puck, they did a great job of getting into areas where we could find them. It was good."

Blues interim coach Drew Bannister wanted better execution, particularly from his top players. He got it from all of them, and 'Colt 55' was at the top of the board.