There were just 20 seconds separating the Anaheim Ducks and St Louis Blues from extra time Friday night until Joel Edmundson scored for St Louis to give them a 4-3 win.
Joel Edmundson scored game-winner over Ducks with 20 seconds left in regulation – file photo by Lewis Bleiman
Edmundson scored off a pass from Robert Bortuzzo for the winner.
“Me and Bortuzzo did a little regrouping,” Edmundson said. “He rushed it all the way down to the corner and we made eye contact. He just sauced it across the ice and I was lucky enough to bury it.”
The win was crucial for the Blues who put a little cushion of three points between themselves and the Los Angles Kings for the second wild card spot in the west.
Jake Allen made 23 saves for the win as the Blues improved to 34-27-5.
“We knew that we needed everybody tonight,” Blues coach Mike Yeo said. “There was parts of our game as far as coming back home were better, there was parts of our game that still we can improve on, some of the mistakes, some of the areas were going good and then we had a little bit of a letdown or we get a little casual with our play. I thought we did a much better job getting to the net, getting pucks to the net tonight. I thought we were tougher to defend in that area.”
Ryan Reaves, Paul Stastny and Vladimir Tarasenko also had goals for the Blues.
Anaheim got goals from Rickard Rakell, Chris Wagner and Jakob Silfverberg scored for the Ducks who dropped to 35-23-10.
“To lose the game with under 20 seconds to go (19.8), it’s very disappointing on the road,” Ducks coach Randy Carlyle said. “We battled back in the hockey game, and coming off a back-to-back where [Thursday] night in (a 1-0 win against the Chicago Blackhawks) and coming in here, this is going to be a tough game. So that’s extremely disappointing. We didn’t really get any reward. Even a point would have been a big difference immensely for us.”
WATCH: All Ducks vs. Blues highlights
John Gibson.took the loss on 31 saves.
“It was a tough game. I thought we played hard the whole game but we’ve got to make sure that we’re ready at the start of periods and at the end of the games,” Rakell said.
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