In St Louis, the Blues’ Pavel Buchnevich scored with just 53 seconds gone in the extra session on Tuesday in a 4-3 win over the Florida Panthers.
“I just see Bennett,” Buchnevich said. “I know he’s a forward and I can beat him. I beat him wide and I feel I can take a shot. Goalie goes down and I can go around the net.”
Ville Husso got the start for the Blues and made 34 saves before leaving the game with an apparent injury late in the third period.
Charlie Lindgren made three saves in relief to get the win.
“It’s pretty tough luck right now, but at the end of the day, it is what it is and there’s no excuses,” the Blues’ Brandon Saad said. “We’re playing some good hockey teams and competing and battling, staying alive, and had a good win tonight. I think the message is whoever’s healthy, whoever’s playing, keep competing and we’re going to have success.”
Aleksander Barkov returned to the Panthers lineup and opened the scoring to give Florida a 1-0 lead.
Brandon Montour and Jonathan Huberdeau also scored for the Panthers’ strikers.
“I feel like we had some chances,” Montour said. “Obviously, [Husso] played a good game. I feel like we had a couple right in front of the net where we might score usually, but it is what it is. Something happens like that, you can’t score every time. The guys battled hard, and we got one point out of that.”
The Panthers dropped to 17-4-4.
“I thought we really played our game in the first,” Florida head coach Andrew Brunette said. “We dictated pace and did everything we wanted for the period, and in the second, I thought we got a little cute and a little sloppy and started taking penalties. They have a great power play, which put us on our heels there a little bit.”
Saad had a goal for the Blues in the third period to give them a temporary 3-2 lead.
“I was kind of just in the area, have your stick in the right place,” Saad said. “It just deflected off me and went in. Obviously, it was great movement there on the power play finishing it off. Sometimes you’ve got to be lucky out there.”
Brayden Schenn and Vladimir Tarasenko also scored for the Blues in regulation.
St Louis improved to 13-8-4.
Spencer Knight made 26 saves in the Florida loss.
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