In St Louis, the Blues’ Ivan Barbashev and Jake Neighbours scored in the third period to break a 2-2 tie with the Columbus Blue Jackets, and help send the Blues to a 5-2 win on Saturday.
The goals were separated by all of 20 seconds.
“That was a line change. My line was coming out,” Barbashev said. “There was a turnover, and ‘Buchy’ passed to ‘Schenner’ I think. It was just a really simple play. I just decided to take a shot.
“That’s what we do. All we do is try to play physical in our game. They made some mistakes, but our team was able to score a couple.”
Vladimir Tarasenko scored a double for St Louis.
“I thought the first period was not bad,” Blues coach Craig Berube said. “We passed up a lot of opportunities to get the puck to the net in my opinion, missed the net on some real good opportunities in the first. I think our game was pretty good. We had good energy. I thought we were on top of things for the most part. Second period, we got sloppy and let them back in the game.”
Jordan Binnington made 23 saves in the St Louis win.
Gustav Nyquist and Sean Kuraly were the Blue Jackets strikers, Columbus had no answers for the Blues in the third period.
“There was lots of good stuff tonight, lots of it,” Blue Jackets coach Brad Larsen said. “You think about the situation we’re in, comparing it to last game, we played a heck of a game here tonight. Teams will force you into some situations. Unfortunately right now, we’re making some really careless mistakes with the puck that’s cost us, and every time we seem to make it, it’s in the back of our net.”
The Blue Jackets are winless in three starts this season.
“I thought actually we had a couple more opportunities to score another one there and [take] the lead into the third period,” Nyquist said. “Couldn’t get it done.”
Pavel Buchnevich also scored for St Louis.
“We were better in the third period,” Berube said. “We just played a lot better in my opinion. Stronger on pucks and controlled the play a little bit more in the offensive zone and competed harder on things. Played the game the right way.”
Elvis Merzlikins made 20 saves in the Columbus loss.
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