In St Louis, the Toronto Maple Leafs had leads of 3-1 and 4-3 but needed an extra time goal from William Nylander to defeat the Blues on Tuesday, 5-4.
Nylander scored with 53 seconds left in the extra session.
Ilya Samsonov made 30 saves in the Toronto win.
“It wasn’t the prettiest of hockey games,” Toronto captain John Tavares said. “These games can be a crapshoot. Great play by ‘Willie’ in OT. We’ll take the two points.”
The Maple Leafs improved to 22-7-6.
Nylander’s winner came after he stripped the puck from Vladimir Tarasenko‘s stick and broke in for the goal.
“He’s got to skate,” St. Louis coach Craig Berube said of Tarasenko. “Whether he keeps it in the zone, but he’s got to know there’s pressure coming and just have more urgency there. I think he can just skate and get separation. I think he’d be fine.”
St Louis’ Jordan Kyrou‘s third period goal tied the game, 4-4, sending it to the extra session.
“As a general rule, you don’t get too critical of these games coming out of the break, even less so when you get two points,” Toronto coach Sheldon Keefe said. “[A] 5-4 game, so there’s a lot going on. It’s a little bit chaotic.”
St Louis dropped to 16-16-3.
Justin Holl scored for Toronto give them a 1-0 lead in the first period, but Calle Rosen tied shortly after the Blues.
Tavares pushed the Leafs back into the lead, 2-1, at 19:03 of the first.
Alexander Kerfoot extended the lead to 3-1 on a shorthanded goal in the sixth minute of the middle frame.
“That shorthanded goal hurt,” Berube said. “That’s just not smart hockey there by us.”
The Blues rallied to tie on goal from Ryan O’Reilly and Justin Faulk (power play).
“Yeah, we had some chances to win that game for sure,” said O’Reilly. “It’s a little frustrating that way, but they’re a dynamic team. Offensively they gave us a lot of issues there and took momentum too much at times. It’s tough. We have to defend better against them.
“We kind of gave them a little too much and relied on ‘Binner’ to keep us in it. We scored some big goals, we kind of stuck with it there and … it’s a good point, but the position we’re in right now, how tight this race is going to be, we need two points. It’s disappointing that way, but some things to build off of.”
The Maple Leafs reclaimed the lead at 15:16 of the middle frame with a strike from Calle Jarnkrok for the 4-3 advantage ahead of Kyrou’s late heroics.
Jordan Binnington made 32 saves in the Blues loss.
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