ST. LOUIS — This game was a study in perseverance. Down 3-0 before they could break a sweat, the Blues chipped away to force overtime against the two-time defending champion Tampa Bay Lightning.
But Jordan Binnington recovered from a horrendous start. He was a rock in extra time, stopping all three Tampa Bay shots in overtime and all three Lightning shootout attempts.
Captain Ryan O’Reilly, who has said on more than once occasion that his hands weren’t working after he returned from COVID, scored the game winner — with the only shootout goal by either team in a 4-3 Blues victory at Enterprise Center.
So the Blues, now 12-7-3 for the season, have now beaten Tampa Bay five straight times dating back to their Stanley Cup season. The Lightning haven’t beaten St. Louis since 2017 — that’s right four years ago.
And you thought the Blues came out flat Saturday against Columbus.
On Tuesday at Enterprise, it was 3-0 Tampa Bay before some fans had finished that first beer.
The first two goals came with Lightning players all over the Blues’ net front. And the Blues doing next to nothing to keep the area clean.
First it was Anthony Cirelli on a strange sequence in which goalie Binnington couldn’t control a shot from Cirelli that trickled in behind Binnington two minutes two seconds into the game. Then with Oskar Sundqvist off for slashing, former longtime Anaheim Duck Corey Perry scored a power-play goal on a net-front tap-in at the 5:24 mark.
Just five seconds later, off the ensuing faceoff, Erik Cernak dumped in the puck, it ricocheted off the glass and headed toward the goal at a 90-degree angle. Binnington badly misplayed the puck which hit his right pad and trickled in between his legs at the 5:29 mark.
It looked like Binnington didn’t see where the puck was until the very last instant, when it was right on him. So it was two goals in just five seconds, a franchise record for the Lightning.
In four previous starts against Tampa Bay, Binnington was 4-0-0 with a 1.72 goals-against average and a save percentage of .945. So much for that.
The Lightning entered the game minus Nikita Kucherov, Steven Stamkos, Brayden Point, and Andrei Vasilevskiy. In short, they have fielded stronger squads in some exhibition games.
The Blues, of course, were playing with a short deck as well. David Perron missed his second game with an apparent concussion. And earlier Tuesday, came bad news on the COVID front. Veteran center Tyler Bozak was added to the team’s COVID list.
That left them with only 11 available forwards, meaning for the third game in a row, they went with 11 forwards and seven defensemen in the lineup.
In the second period, Jordan Kyrou worked and worked in the offensive zone, possessing the puck and looking for an opening. He found one, putting a backdoor pass on the stick of O’Reilly, who beat Brian Elliott stick side from the left net front for his fourth goal of the season and second since he returned from the COVID list Nov. 7 at Anaheim.
So it was a 3-1 game at the 3:15 mark of the second period.
Elliott, who played for the Blues from 2011 through 2016, got the start in place of Vasilevskiy, who had the night off.
Three minutes later, it became a 3-2 game when St. Louisan Logan Brown scored his first Blues goal in his first game with his hometown team since his callup Sunday from Springfield of the AHL.
Using a Tampa Bay defender as a screen, Brown beat Elliot stickside from the far edge of the left circle. The happiest fan in the stands at Enterprise had to be former Blues defenseman Jeff Brown — Logan’s father.
Following the Brown goal, the rest of the second period was an evenly played affair. The Blues couldn’t convert on an early tripping penalty by Tampa’s Ondrej Palat (on Justin Faulk). Late in the period, Tampa Bay was whistled for another penalty — a high-stick by Cernak (on Sundqvist).
So St. Louis still had 1:27 of power play time as the third period opened. They made the most of it against a Lightning penalty kill unit that entered the night ranked fifth in the NHL with an 87 percent kill rate.
Rookie Scott Perunovich started out with the puck near the blue line but then drove towards the net. He then passed to Ivan Barbashev in the slot, who did the rest. Barbashev’s eighth goal of the season made it a 3-3 hockey game at the 1:11 mark of the third — or with just 16 seconds left on the power play.
Keep in mind, Barbashev rarely sees power play duty but was moved to the second unit after Perron was injured. He had only one power play goal in his career prior to this season. But he now has two this season, with the other coming Friday in Chicago.
Barbashev has scored a goal in three consecutive games, and four goals total in those three games.
The Blues kept up the pressure and had several good chances, but couldn’t get a fourth goal past Elliott. With 8:02 left, Perunovich was called for interference — a debatable call — and Tampa had the man advantage.
The Blues killed off the penalty and kept the pressure on the Lightning. Kyrou was sprung by Torey Krug on a breakaway and missed the net. Then Brayden Schenn broke in on rush down left wing — and missed the net.
Could the Blues close out a game, or would they lose yet another one-goal contest? They had won only two of seven one-goal games (2-4-3) entering Tuesday’s contest. It took overtime to answer the question.
No, make that a shootout.
