In St Paul, the St Louis Blues’ Sammy Blais scored in the third period to tie the game with the Minnesota Wild at 3-3 with the game heading to extra time.
Ryan O’Reilly scored midway through the extra session for a 4-3 win for St Louis, their fourth straight.
“You have to find different ways to win, and that’s what we’re doing,” Blues coach Craig Berube said. “I don’t think we panic, we just stay with it. Things don’t go our way all the time, that’s the way it is and night in and night out, things don’t go your way all the time, you just have to keep battling.”
Jake Allen made 20 saves for the win.
Marcus Foligno, Kevin Fiala and Mats Zuccarello scored for the Wild.
“I don’t know what to say,” Zuccarello said. “It’s up to us in here, the group to win games. Bounces or not, that’s going to go against you sometimes. You can’t rely on that, you’ve got to earn it. … It’s a boring answer, and you can say it as long as you want, but we were playing hard. We’re all battling out there, trying to do our best. If we play like that, we’re going to get some wins.”
The Wild had one goal over ruled in the middle frame on goalie interference call.
“It wasn’t (interference),” Wild coach Bruce Boudreau said. “That was my thoughts. It wasn’t.
“It’s discouraging. I’m glad we’re not playing tomorrow. So we’ve got a day to build back up and about two days to go after it. But this team plays with a lot of heart. They wanted to win pretty badly, I thought, and it was discouraging. … I mean, the positive thing is you got a point, but I still think, the early stage here, we needed two, you know?”
Mackenzie MacEachern and Carl Gunnarsson also scored for the Blues.
“It wasn’t a perfect game, by any means,” O’Reilly said. “I thought Jake played very well tonight and we didn’t help him out enough. But obviously [we got] a couple breaks and found a way to win. It’s an important two points, but a lot of adjustments we need to make going forward.”
[WATCH: All Blues vs. Wild highlights]
Devan Dubnyk made 25 saves in the loss, the Wild are 1-3-1 in their last five.
“There’s [66] games left. If you’re going to get like that now, you’re in real trouble. I’m guessing things can spiral if you’re looking at Game 50 and you’re not in the race, then all of a sudden then what do you do,” Boudreau said after another dreary loss.
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