Edmonton Oilers rookie Connor McDavid said he didn’t have any trouble falling asleep on the eve of his professional debut.
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The Blues’ second straight road win, a 4-2 victory, wasn’t wrapped up until Alexander Steen put it away with his second goal of the season with 2 minutes, 9 seconds left in regulation.
Spezza’s go-ahead goal for a 3-2 lead with 4:30 remaining came moments after goaltender Kari Lehtonen had stopped Nail Yakupov on a breakaway. Penalties-Schultz, Edm (holding), 9:52.
The former New York Islanders third round pick was kept busy from start to finish, facing 51 shots in his Oilers debut and gave his team a chance at pulling out points from a game they had no business being in.
The Dallas Stars have scored 10 goals this season. Last season Bouma had 16 goals and 34 points, both career highs.
In Pittsburgh, Tomas Fleischmann finished an odd-man rush with his first goal of the season early in the third period and Montreal beat the Penguins. The Blues winger’s third of the season made it 2-1. Mason Raymond, Jiri Hudler and David Jones scored for Calgary. “Our offense has to get better and a lot of that has to do with our power play”, McLellan said.
Edmonton’s Teddy Purcell stood at the red line and shot a puck into the offensive zone that hit the end boards and bounced back into the slot.
Expect Brian Elliott to get the nod against the Oilers and Jake Allen to get the start against the Canucks on Friday.
But the Blues had a quick response, with Jori Lehtera scoring his first goal of the season for the equalizer.
However, St. Louis bounced back a minute-and-a-half later as a Troy Brouwer shot caromed off the post to Lehtera, who beat Edmonton goalie Cam Talbot. I don’t expect Shattenkirk to miss more than 1-3 games.
The team didn’t dwell unduly on the faded glory Thursday night. When Tarasenko exited the box, the unit was three for three against the Oilers, and a short time later, Tarasenko made amends.
It’s just two games, with eighty games left and two hundred and forty periods of regulation hockey left there is plenty of time to score and win.
Well, the Blues pulled another one out of their hat with the STL Line on the ice. If they can continue putting up similar numbers, they should not endure many more problems as to whether they can win games or not. They battled, the puck popped loose, and an alert Jay Bouwmeester pushed it back to Tarasenko, who was at the top of the circle. Jason Spezza had an incredible game last night and finally seems to have settled in for the 2015-2016 season.
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With Tarasenko’s left knee touching the ice, he ripped a shot estimated at 55 feet that sizzled past Talbot. While Edmonton is off to a rough 0-3 start, the Blues must take them seriously (as Hitchcock repeatedly emphasized last week), because the young cast that features potential future stars like Connor McDavid, Ryan Nugent-Hopkins, and Griffin Reinhart is bound to gel at any time under new head coach Todd McLellan. Through three games this year, the club has averaged 36 shots on net and 3.33 goals per game. Parayko has impressed over 3 games of National Hockey League action.
