In St Louis, Brandon Saad hit for a double to help lead the Blues to a 4-2 win over the Pittsburgh Penguins on Saturday.
Jordan Binnington made 31 saves in the win.
“Any time you have that experience to fall back on, you can kind of turn the page and I think we did a good job of staying composed and doing that here tonight,” Saad said. “After last game, we didn’t have our best game and we wanted to come out with some pace and some chances tonight, and I think we did a good job of moving the puck and creating some chances. As a line all night (with Robert Thomas and Jordan Kyrou), I thought we played pretty well.”
Saad scored just shy of the midway point of the first period for a 1-0 lead to St Louis.
“We didn’t play hard enough, and we didn’t play smart enough,” Pittsburgh coach Mike Sullivan said. “We got what we deserved.
“We had our chances, but give St. Louis credit. They defended hard, they took advantage of the opportunities we gave them. You know, we gave them way too many chances off the rush, because we didn’t play with the purpose that we need to play with in the offensive zone, whether it be with the puck or without it.”
Evgeni Malkin tied the game on a breakaway with five seconds left in the first, 1-1.
“I thought we had a good first,” St Louis’ Jake Neighbours said. “Obviously still things to clean up and stuff like that, but I thought we had a good first and it was just a bad bounce out of our zone at the end of a power play that had really a lot of good looks. It was tough, we knew that. It doesn’t really deplete a team. We did a good job coming into the room and chatting about it, knowing that we had a good push there in the first and just needed to come out strong in the second.”
Neighbours scored at 5:39 of the second to give the Blues a 2-1 lead.
Colton Parayko scored 93 seconds later for a 3-1 advantage.
“That’s one of those ones where you just kind of watch,” Neighbours said. “He put on a show there. Just have my stick on the ice and go to the back post. That’s an easy one for me.”
Saad’s double came at 15:13 of the third for a 4-1 lead.
The Pens’ Radim Zohorna scored at 16:27 off a scramble for the 4-2 final.
“We had people at the net, we had people at the blue paint, and you know, we’ve scored a fair amount of goals already this year at the blue paint,” Sullivan said. “I don’t think that was the issue tonight.”
Tristan Jarry made 17 saves in the loss.
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