A friendly reminder to the Pittsburgh Penguins and Sidney Crosby: the St. Louis Blues are not the New York Islanders. The Blues won’t part the waters for Sid like the Isles tend to do, and they’re sure as heck not afraid of checking him and frustrating him into taking three penalties. The Blues sent a message to the Penguins and the rest of the league last night: we can defeat the top teams, we’re not scared of the top teams, and we’re sure as hell not scared of your superstars.
The game looked like it was going to be a tight one, with only one goal heading through the first two periods – a slapshot from Scott Nichol that seemed to be redirected a bit off of T.J. Oshie’s shoulder wizzed past Marc Andre Fleury. The second period nearly saw the Blues hop to a 2-0 lead, but David Backes’ goal that squeaked between Fleury’s pad and the goalpoast was correctly disallowed due to a kicking motion.
The Blues of the past would have let that been a sign that they just weren’t meant to win, or maybe they would have taken Steve Sullivan’s tying power play goal as a sign of that. This team, well, they fought back. Jamie Langenbrunner flicked a Christ Stewart shot past Fleury, who was having issues keeping track of the puck and the multitude of players surrounding him at once.
The Penguins forced overtime with about six minutes to go via James Neal, but the Blues still didn’t cower, roaring back in overtime and winning on a goal from Alex Pietrangelo. Apparently Pittsburgh missed the memo that Petro’s one of the best offensive defensemen in the league, because his game winner was very un-defenseman like. Petro was lurking about the front of the net when he received a pass from Vladimir Sobotka and faked out Fleury, flipping it into a wide open net in the last minute of overtime.
With last night’s win, the Blues now have 24 points on the season, are 11-8-2, and are back in 8th place in the Western Conference – and within three points of the division leading Chicago Blackhawks.