ST. LOUIS -- Jaden Schwartz had let enough chances slip by this season.Jake Allen stopped 27 shots and Schwartz scored early in the third period, leading the St. Louis Blues over the Los Angeles Kings 1-0 on Saturday night.Schwartz scored 3:43 into the third off a pass from Jori Lehtera, swiping the puck from in front past goalie Peter Budaj.Its nice seeing it go in. Ive been missing too many, Schwartz said. It was a huge play. I got it off my stick as quick as I could. I wanted to rip that one. Ive had some this year and missed.Allen got his first shutout this season and the 12th in his career.You just keep playing your game and try not to let anything faze you, Allen said. If you need a shutout, so be it, but you dont want to get too far ahead of yourself. Its just sort of one minute at a time.Schwartz got the first goal by a Blues forward in 169 minutes, 22 seconds. Vladimir Tarasenko also assisted on Schwartzs first goal of the season.Los Angeles challenged the play for offsides, but the goal was upheld.Budaj had 24 saves. He had won five straight dating to last season.I think its just sometimes good players make a good play, Budaj said about the goal. Its a nice play for them, give credit to them. Sometimes you get bounces and sometimes you dont.Before Schwartzs goal, the action was sparse in a hard-hitting game. Los Angeles had just 10 shots in each of the first two periods, and the Blues had 13 shots after two periods.This was no day at the beach for either team, this type of game, St. Louis coach Ken Hitchcock said. This was a heavy, hard, well-played hockey game.The Blues have had just one goal in five of their last six games.Were playing kind of like Italian soccer, 1-0, good defense, and its just one goal, Lehtera said. Its enough.St. Louis has won three in a row against the Kings, who entered play with a four-game winning streak -- three in overtime and one in a shootout.The Kings failed to score on five power-play opportunities. For the season, St. Louis has killed 30 of 32 power plays.Killing penalties is just work, Blues defenseman Jay Bouwmeester said. At the end of the day, your goalie is your best penalty killer and Jakes been coming up with some big saves.The Blues did not score on four chances with an extra man.Los Angeles defenseman Braden McNabb left early in the third period with an upper body injury and did not return.Game notes St. Louis defenseman Robert Bortuzzo has a lower body injury and will be evaluated in 10 days. Bortuzzo was injured early in the third period in Thursdays 2-1 shootout loss to Detroit. Bortuzzo was skating to the bench after serving a minor penalty and collided with a Red Wings player. ... This game was the only regular season meeting for the teams in St. Louis. The other two games will be played in Los Angeles. ... The Blues announced Bob Plagers No. 5 would be officially retired. Plager will join Al MacInnis, Bob Gassoff, Brian Sutter, Brett Hull, Bernie Federko and his brother, Barclay Plager, as the only players to receive the honor from the Blues. Plager was recognized during the first period. The official ceremony featuring the banner with his number raising will take place Feb. 2 when the Blues host the Toronto Maple Leafs. ... Bouwmeester skated in his 999th regular season game.UP NEXT:Los Angeles: Play at Chicago on Sunday.St. Louis: Play at the New York Rangers on Tuesday. Cheap Nike Basketball Shoes China .Y. -- Sabres forward Drew Stafford has witnessed plenty of turmoil during his eight seasons in Buffalo. Cheap Nike KD 12 Shoes .Y. -- The Buffalo Sabres have placed centre Cody Hodgson on injured reserve and recalled two players from their AHL affiliate in Rochester. http://www.cheapkdshoesclearance.com/cheap-kevin-durant/kd-11-clearance-for-sale.html . Roman Josi had a goal and an assist to lead the Predators to a 4-1 victory over the Dallas Stars on Monday night. Kyrie Irving Shoes Clearance .com) - Yankee Stadium is the home of the Bronx Bombers, but on Sunday afternoon it will open its gates to host the latest addition of the Hudson River Rivalry. Kd Shoes Cheap . -- Three close looks at the bucket, three misses. CHICAGO -- Theo Epstein is restless in a way most of us are not.No one is more invested in finding out whether he can repeat in Chicago what he did in Boston a dozen years ago -- win a World Series in a town that measures its disappointment in decades.But its not just the short-term goal that commands Epsteins attention. In the middle of a vacation with family or the middle of an inning surrounded by staff -- sometimes even in mid-sentence -- Epstein will extricate himself from the group, pull out his mobile phone and laser-focus on the longer-term target: building a dynasty.Thats why no box has gone unchecked. Its why Epstein spent days poring over brochures for sectional sofas to furnish the Cubs luxurious new clubhouse, but also why he spent five years tracking the ups and downs of a former Red Sox prospect named Anthony Rizzo, then traded for him when the time -- not to mention the price -- was right.Weve made plenty of mistakes, Epstein said on the field at Wrigley hours before the Cubs beat the Dodgers to wrap the NLCS last week. But the ones that weve hit on, weve gotten lucky with; some impact guys back, some best-case scenarios as far as how the guys have turned out.We knew, he added a moment later, that we didnt have a chance to rebuild twice in a market like this.When Epstein came on board with the Cubs in 2011, his task was to turn around an aircraft carrier-sized organization. He put back together his sabermetric-styled band from earlier stints in San Diego and Boston -- front-office execs Jed Hoyer and Jason McLeod -- and rolled up his sleeves.During the first phase, he set out to shed what was essentially a roster of bad contracts and spare parts, then went searching for difference-makers largely through the draft. Cub fans, meanwhile, struggled to see what difference all that attention to data and detail made.The team lost 101 games in Epsteins first season on the job, then 96 and 89. But in 2015 with manager Joe Maddon and a roster stocked with promising young talent and a few savvy veterans, it became clear the rebuild had paid off.Rizzo was a budding star at first base. Across the diamond was draft choice and soon-to-be Rookie of the Year Kris Bryant. Up the middle, Addison Russell locked down the starting shortstop job at 21, and Javier Baez began realizing his offensive promise. Behind them in center was Dexter Fowler, who hit for more power than ever before.Despite his reputation as a numbers guru, one factor in many of Epsteins trade and draft decisions was actually a hunch. He prioritized hitters with power instead of pitching, betting that one little-examined consequence of baseballs toughened-up drug policy would be a dearthh of the former and a surplus of the latter.dddddddddddd This season made him look like a genius.It didnt hurt, of course, that pitching coach Chris Bosio turned pitchers Kyle Hendricks and Jake Arrieta from afterthoughts into tough-as-nails, front-of-the-rotation starters. Or that Epstein was given a Monopoly-money checkbook to add expensive complementary parts like veteran pitchers Jon Lester and John Lackey, and switch-hitting, infielder-outfielder Ben Zobrist, whom Maddon uses like a Swiss Army knife.None of this comes as a surprise to Cleveland manager Terry Francona, who had the same job in Boston when Epstein, only 31 and still regarded as a wunderkind, rebuilt the franchise and reversed his first curse. Hed seen him at work before. He knew how much the infighting in the wake of all that success in Boston had stung Epstein.I saw him in spring training when we played them. He made a point of coming down actually during the game. And we text every so often, Francona said on the eve of the Series. Something comes up or something happens that he thinks is funny, or jogs a memory. Weve texted back and forth during the last couple playoff series. We were together eight years.Eight years in Boston is, I would almost say miraculous. Theres a lot of fond memories and we got through some tough times together and came out in the end. I knew when things got tough, he said, where I could go.That kind of loyalty and toughness impressed itself on Maddon when he interviewed for the Red Sox job that Francona -- who had much more experience at the time -- wound up getting. What hes learned about Epstein since made him even a bigger admirer.When he scans the clubhouse and sees the team his boss has assembled, Maddon marvels that theres not a prima donna in sight. Just like the couch and the ottoman he plops down on occasionally, Epstein has covered every detail ahead of time. Not just the new-age business tools like NASA-caliber scouting reports, but the old-school nod to issues like personalities and character.I think sometimes in the game today, it gets to the point where its just about acquiring a number, Maddon said. Im a big believer in that, but I also like the balance between the person and what the back of his baseball card says. Our guys do a wonderful job of balancing the math with the actual person.Thank Theos restlessness for that. Four more wins and generations of Cub fans will be doing the same.---Jim Litke is a sports columnist for The Associated Press. Write to him at jlitke(at)ap.org and https://Twitter.com/JimLitke . ' ' '