After rallying late in the game Saturday night, the Blues lost in their first overtime experience of the regular season to the New York Islanders. Overtime is now using a 3-on-3 format, forcing more scoring opportunities and causing more heart attacks, as well.
The Blues are finally back in St. Louis after a six game road trip. The last five of those games featured match ups with Canadien teams. The last game of the trip was against the unbeaten Montreal Canadiens.
Although both the Islanders and the Blues started the game with a high intensity, New York struck first in the first period (Kyle Okposo) and second in the second (John Tavares).
The Blues were missing five players due to injuries; Patrick Berglund, Paul Stastny, Kevin Shattenkirk, Robby Fabbri, and as of Friday- Jaden Schwartz.
Despite the injuries, the Blues had a stellar third period. It was one of the more entertaining periods this year as Colton Parayko grabbed his third goal of the season with a wrist shot to cut the lead in half, 2-1.
Then Parayko took a slapshot that was tipped in by Alexander Steen with 9:09 to go in the third.
Tied 2-2 after regulation, the game went to overtime. Steen had a wide open chance to slap a one-timer in, but it bounced off of his stick wide. With a fast rush into the Blues defensive zone, Frans Nielsen slid the puck past Brian Elliot and Mikhail Grabovski tapped it in to end the game.
“That’s what’s frustrating,” Elliot said. “To lose in OT is a disapointment, but you have to be happy with the one point and kind of move on from it and learn from that start. We had a lot of good things so you can’t hang your head too much.”
The Blues face-off against the Tampa Bay Lightning this Thursday at 7:00 p.m. You can find the game on NBCSN and you can follow the game on Twitter via @bluesbuzzblog.
