In Elmont, the visiting St Louis Blues finally found some offense, and just enough defense to skate off with a 7-4 win over the Islanders on Tuesday night.
The Blues took a 3-1 lead into the third period, and then needed to outscore the Isles in the third, 4-3, for the win.
“When you’re a player and things aren’t going well, you tend to lose your confidence,” Blues coach Craig Berube said. “It’s frustrating. You want to win and you want to do well. …You just have to keep battling. You got to work your way out of things. That’s the only way. And when you work your way out of things, you got to continue to work and work and compete and play the right way to have success.”
Former Isles goalie Thomas Greiss made 36 saves in the win.
St Louis improved to 12-14-0.
Leading into the third period, the Blues held a 3-1 lead, and Noel Acciari gave the Blues a 4-1 early in the frame, and Colton Parayko pushed the advantage to 5-1.
“We felt good about our game,” Islanders captain Anders Lee said. “We gave up a couple grade As and they put them in. Just too big of a hole tonight, that’s what it was. But we fought until the end and gave ourselves a chance.”
Good enough to reel off three straight goals.
Zach Parise and Hudson Fasching pulled the Isles within one at 5-3.
“In the third we were a little more risky trying to get on the offense,” Parise said. “That gave them some more odd-man rushes, so it’s almost like give a little, take a little.”
Jean-Gabriel Pageau then scored a quick third goal to make the score 5-4.
Robert Thomas and Acciari hit empty nets for the 7-5 final.
Noah Dobson also scored for the Isles, his strike tie the game, 1-1, after Josh Leivo had give the Blues a 1-0 lead in the first period.
“I’ve always been a shooter,” Leivo said. “Every coach has told me to shoot the puck, so that’s what I’m doing.”
Ivan Barbashev and Ryan O’Reilly scored in the middle frame for the 3-1 lead.
“It’s a good bounce,” O’Reilly said. “Just whacking it and got a good bounce there, so I’ll take it.
“It’s really nice to win. It’s a feeling we haven’t had in a while. Again, made it a little too exciting at the end there, but the big thing is we won a game. There’s a lot of good things we did tonight … there’s something to build off there.”
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Ilya Sorokin made 21 saves in the loss.
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