ST. LOUIS — When the Blues lost to the Penguins in January, they let a two-goal lead disappear, got outscored in the third period 3-0 and got thoroughly outplayed for most of the game.
“Tonight’s a chance to respond and show them our best effort and make it a lot harder on them,” Blues captain Ryan O’Reilly said Thursday morning.
The Penguins still dominated for long stretches on Thursday night, outshooting them almost 2-1 in regulation and the play of goalie Ville Husso kept the score close long enough for the Blues to get even from a two-goal deficit and send the game to overtime for a surprising point. Overtime has not been good to the Blues this season, Torey Krug had two good scoring chances in the extra period, one that hit the post, another that was blocked, and the game went to a shootout, where the Penguins’ Bryan Rust scored in the fourth round to give the Blues a 3-2 loss before a sellout crowd at Enterprise Center.
The Blues went 0 for 4 on the shootout. David Perron and Ivan Barbashev scored for the Blues in regulation, with Barbashev's pulling them even early in the third period.
The Blues had Pavel Buchnevich back after he had missed three games with a concussion, but did not have back Robert Thomas, who missed his second game out sick while Husso started for the third time in four games.
The Blues had a great chance early when the Penguins were called for delay of game nine seconds into the game, and then 26 seconds later, were called for high sticking, giving the Blues a two-man advantage for 1;34. But while the Blues got some shots on goal in that span, there weren’t any great scoring chances and the Penguins killed the penalties.
After that, the Penguins began to launch odd-man rushes at the Blues, once with Marco Scandella sliding to break up a chance on a two-on-one and another time the Penguins hit the post. Finally, the Penguins scored with 5:18 to go in the period, with defenseman Chad Ruhwedel one-timing a pass from Marcus Pettersson off a faceoff through traffic to make it 1-0.
The second period was not a good one for the Blues, with the puck spending a lot of time in their zone and Husso having to make a lot of saves. He kept the Penguins from scoring until the second half of the period, when Mike Matheson skated on to a pass from Kasperi Kapanen off the boards, controlled the puck and beat Husso to the top right corner to make it 2-0.
When the Blues were done killing Perron’s second offensive-zone penalty of the period with 4:54 to play, they were being outshot by Pittsburgh 16-2 in the second, but with 3:05 to go in the second, Perron struck back. He took a long pass from Ivan Barbashev near center ice, shielded the puck from Matheson with his body and with his stick his stick fully extended as he cut in front of goalie Tristan Jarry and after Jarry went down, put the puck over him and in for his ninth goal in eight games and 18th of the season.
It also got Perron even with his son, who was on the ice in the youth hockey showcase in the first intermission and, along with Tyler Bozak’s son, scored a goal while their dads, Perron in uniform, the injured Bozak out of uniform, watched from the Blues’ bench, having a grand time.
The Blues have struggled lately to play three solid periods in games, and the second, once their specialty, has become a rough time. On Thursday, they were outshot 17-6 in the second.
“I think at times, we just don't respond quick enough,” said O’Reilly. “Over the course of the game, other teams are gonna have momentum and there's going to be times where you get caught on your heels for a bit. We’ve talked about it and it's responding quicker, having confidence in each other, sticking together and getting out of those kind of rough situation by working and trusting each other and I think at times we've done a better job of doing that and I think there's no question in my mind that that's gonna improve over this next stretch with these with the intensity of these games.”
The Blues responded in the third, coming out with more energy than they had in either of the first two. Less than two minutes in, Oskar Sundqvist won a faceoff in the Pittsburgh end, Brandon Saad, who’s from Pittsburgh, took the puck behind the net and backhanded either a shot or a pass that went off Jarry’s stick blade and right to Barbashev, who had an easy tap in to tie the game. It was his 19th goal of the season.
