In St Louis Saturday, the Blues needed a win of any kind to keep the pressure on the rivals around them in the Central Division and the Western Conference wild card holders.
They got the win in overtime, 4-3 over the New York Rangers.
Brayden Schenn struck for the game-winner just over a minute into the extra session.
“[Gilmour] looked like a pretty quick defenseman there,” Schenn said. “I was skating into the corner there and felt like I wasn’t going to beat him, so I just tried to turn up, pull
to the middle and I was able to beat him off the wall.”
The Blues are within three points of the second wild card spot in the west.
“There were some ups and downs during that one, I would say,” Blues head coach Mike Yeo said. “It’s a big win, big response in the third period.”
Jake Allen made 17 saves to pick up the win.
Alex Pietrangelo struck twice in regulation for St Louis.
“I thought other than the second period, we had some real good pushes. I think we did a lot of things we built off (our last road) trip. I thought we let it get away from us a bit there (in the second period), but overall we needed those two points,” Pietrangelo said after the game.
The Rangers did not go down easily, Mika Zibanejad struck twice and Mats Zuccarello added a goal all in the middle frame.
“We didn’t do a good job of kind of getting that forecheck going and getting some shots on net,” Zibanejad said. “They’re a good team and we talked about that before. I thought we worked ourselves back into the game, and it was unfortunate not to come up with the two points there.”
Nikita Soshnikov also scored for the Blues.
“It was a broken play going into the zone and [Chris Thorburn] dropped the puck for me,” said Soshnikov, who played his eighth game with St. Louis after being acquired from the Toronto Maple Leafs on Feb. 15. “I saw the room for a shot and I shot it. I saw the room there and I went there.”
[WATCH:Â All Rangers vs. Blues highlights]
Alexandar Georgiev made 29 saves in the loss.
“Well we followed the master plan in the first period, tire them out in our own end,” Rangers head coach Alain Vigneault said. “Our [defensemen] couldn’t make a pass and our forwards couldn’t get through the neutral zone, but after that, I liked our game. We played well in the second period, didn’t give them much and we got some pretty good looks and were able to take a 3-2 lead.”

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