In Edmonton, Jake Allen made 32 saves for the St Louis Blues in a 5-2 win over the Oilers on Wednesday night.
“[Allen] had a really strong game,” Blues coach Craig Berube said. “They made a good push in the third and he made some really good saves. We knew they were going to push, and I thought he was solid.”
Five different skaters scored for the Blues including Alex Pietrangelo who had a goal and three points on the night.
“He’s (Pietrangelo) our backbone, he leads us from the back end, and he’s got all the tough match-ups,” Robert Thomas said. “He makes a big bunch of plays defensively and offensively and really slows it down for us. He’s really our calming influence. He made a huge impact.”
Connor McDavid (power play) and Zack Kassian scored for the Oilers.
“It was one of those games. They just played a solid, solid game,” Oilers coach Dave Tippett said. “They made the plays that counted. We took [three] penalties and they capitalized on two, and we also made a real poor rush read for their third one and we were chasing the game against a good team.”
The Blues struck twice on the power play and twice while the Oilers were on a power play and the goalie pulled in the final minute of regulation.
“The power play was good for them. I thought their whole game was really good, they’re obviously the Cup champs,” McDavid said. “They don’t give up much, they play hard, and they know what they’re doing out there.”
St Louis improved to 11-3-3.
“I’ve felt like I’ve been getting better every game, to be honest, and that was sort of the goal at the start of the year,” Allen said. ” I felt a lot more comfortable and it felt good to get a lot of action and obviously, it was good to get the win and the guys battled hard. It was a tough back-to-back with the late night (against the Vancouver Canucks on Thursday) and the early game. The guys deserve a lot of credit for the way they played.”
Jaden Schwartz, Thomas, Tyler Bozak, and Ivan Barbashev also had goals for the Blues.
“It was a good team effort at the end. They really brought it to us and they’re a good, explosive team,” Thomas said. “We knew they were going to come with a big push and [Allen] stood tall for us.”
[WATCH:Â All Blues vs. Oilers highlights]
Mike Smith made 20 saves in the loss.
“This was a lesson for us,” Oscar Klefbom said after the loss. “This was a playoff game and obviously we have a long way to go. It was tight game, and we took some stupid penalties and that cost us. They’re a solid team. They are solid in all three zones and we have to find a way to win these games.”
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