David Backes noticed the play and responded by throwing Jackman on his *Gunnarsson* after a breakout pass (interpret that how you’d like).
Throughout the game Nashville seemed to establish their presence in a physical way, out hitting the Blues 34 to 24.
About halfway through the first, Alex Pietrangelo entered the offensive zone and caught a pass from Robby Fabbri. Pietrangelo spun around and hit Jay Bouwmeester with a crisp pass to the opposite point. Bouwmeeter’s shot was deflected and punching in by Dmitrij Jaskin—his second of the year.
But the Predators bounced back.
Seth Jones was penalized for holding Magnus Paajarvi. On the power kill, Mattias Ekholm beat Jake Allen after Mike Fisher won an offensive zone face-off.
Both teams registered one goal and seven shots on goal in the first period.
Jori Lehtera brought the puck around the Predators net midway through the second. He dropped it off for Fabbri, who undressed the Predators with a couple dekes. He then fired the puck past Carter Hutton to give the Blues a 2-1 lead.
bout two minutes in, Kevin Shattenkirk led a Blues’ rush up through the neutral zone. Upon entering, he unloaded a slap shot that found its way past Hutton.
Then the Blues made it interesting.
Shea Weber received a pass from Roman Josi at the point, and beat Allen with a quickly released snap shot. Weber’s 11th goal of the season cut the Blues’ lead to 3-2.
Then the Blues made it very interesting.
With 1:32 left in regulation, the Predators tied the game. Hutton was pulled for the sixth out-skater and shortly after the Preds were back in it. Colin Wilson’s shot hit several pieces of equipment before sneaking past a stumbling Allen and into the net.
Ah, overtime—hate it or love it.
After several scoring chances for both teams, Paul Stastny found Alexander Steen with a stride on the Predator’s defensemen. Steen beat Hutton under the blocker and sent thousands of Blues fans home happy.
The win improves the Blues’ record to 23-12-4 and keeps the Predators at 18-12-7. In other news, the red-hot Dallas Stars (currently the best team in the NHL) were beat 6-3 courtesy of the Columbus Blues Jackets (currently the worst team in the NHL). That should give some hope to Blues fans; let’s just finish the first 82 games before we start to panic.
The Blues will have another Central Division show-down with the Minnesota Wild on Thursday, 7:00 p.m.
