WINNIPEG – The St. Louis Blues came into Winnipeg with two wins against the Jets already this season and stole a 4-3 win at the MTS Centre after being outplayed for most of the game.
“We’ve been here,” said Blues forward Alexander Steen. “We don’t give up. I think this has been one of our strong points this [season], to be able to keep playing, keep pushing forward.
“With the style of game that we play, we know that if we stick to it, we’ll be able to get our chances eventually.”
The Blues scored two third-period goals to get the two points and hand the Jets another frustrating loss after they dominated most of the play. The loss puts them in seventh place in the Central Division and six points behind the Nashville Predators who hold down the final Wild Card playoff spot in the West.
“It’s hard when you like so much of the game to lose that way,” Winnipeg coach Paul Maurice said.
The Jets jumped out to a 1-0 lead in the first period as Mark Scheifele tipped in a Tyler Myers point shot for his 12th of the season. The Jets controlled most of the play and probably should have been up by more heading into the second period.
The Blues got another strong start in goal from Jake Allen who has taken over as their number one guy. Allen stopped 33 shots including a couple point blank saves off the stick of Andrew Ladd and Drew Stafford.
“What he did was in the third period when we had no legs, we were exhausted, [Allen] came through for us,” Hitchcock said. “He made big save after big save. I knew three or four shifts into the third period that we were going to have a heroic [goaltending] effort just to keep afloat, because we had put so much into the game, and our guys were showing the effects of so much hockey.”
He was named the game’s second star.
“It’s a gutsy, very impressive win for me,” St. Louis coach Ken Hitchcock said.
The Blues tied things up just 16 seconds into the second period as Troy Brouwer walked in and ripped a wicked wrist shot upstairs past Connor Hellebuyck to square things up at 1-1.
The Jets stormed back as Chris Thorburn was jonnie-on-the-spot in the slot and took a nice feed from Blake Wheeler to get his fifth of the season. Drew Stafford was the recipient of some great work from Sheifele and Mathieu Perreault to convert his 11th of the season to give the Jets a 3-1 lead. A questionable holding call on Adam Lowry gave the Blues a power play just before the period ended and Alex Steen made the Jets pay as he scored his 11th of the season to get the Blues to within one goal down 3-2 heading to the third.
Some late shenanigans before the second period ended cost the Jets as Sheifele was given an extra penalty after a scrum and the Blues once again capitalized as Vladimir Tarasenko scored his 19th a power play marker to tie things up at 3-3 just under a minute into the third.
“They’ve got a potent power play, and we know that they’re going to capitalize if we give them that many chances,” Scheifele said. “We can’t be doing that.”
After a lot of great scoring chances by the Jets the Blues caught a break and had an odd man rush that turned into the winning goal as Paul Stastny converted a Tarasenko pass into the back of the net for his 3rd of the year with under 4 minutes to go. The Jets had a couple of chances at the end but couldn’t convert.
Hellebuyck took the loss to fall to 4-2 on the season. He made 22 saves on 26 shots.
The Jets will have a couple days off before the Rangers come to town.
Notes: Chris Thorburn tied the franchise record for games played as he played in his 594th game with Thrashers/Jets tying Ilya Kovalchuk who played from 2001-2010.
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