In St Louis, the Blues’ Jakub Vrana and Robert Thomas scored in the first and second half of the third period, respectively, to break open a 2-2 tie with the San Jose Sharks for a 4-2 win on Thursday night.
“I saw [Pavel Buchnevich] make a nice pass there to [Kasperi Kapanen],” Vrana said. “I was driving [to] the net and the puck ended up right there. At that point, I just try to find a little spot there through the goalie and the net to bang it in.
“I think around the net like that in tight, you just put like a soft [shot] around the pad or something.”
Jordan Binnington made 32 saves in the Blues win.
Erik Karlsson scored midway through the opening stanza for a 1-0 lad to the Sharks.
St Louis moved to 28-31-5.
“There’s really good signs of good things, but I’d like to see more,” St. Louis coach Craig Berube said. “I’m maybe too demanding, but like tonight, I just want to see more urgency and intensity at the start of a game. I can go back to a couple other games, I see a lot of good stuff. But I’m going to demand more and I want to see more.”
Torey Krug scored two minutes later to tie the game, 1-1, headed to the middle frame.
San Jose dropped to 19-36-12.
“I liked our game in a lot of ways,” San Jose coach David Quinn said. “Again, our mistakes were too big and ended up in the back of our net. We weren’t able to capitalize on any power plays (0-for-4) and they get a big power-play goal. That was the end of the game.
“It’s disappointing because we did some good things, but a couple of big breakdowns on their goals cost us.”
In the second period, the two teams traded goals again with the Blues taking a 2-1 lead on a strike by Sammy Blais.
San Jose tied it, 2-2, on a marker from Tomas Hertl.
“It’s always nice to score a goal,” Hertl said. “But I still try to win the game every night. It’s nice to finally have some chances and score some goals. I just have to keep working.”
Thomas scored off the power play to ice the win.
Kaapo Kahkonen made 26 saves in the loss.
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