Ryan O’Reilly’s second goal of the game was the overtime winner that gave the St. Louis Blues a 5-4 victory over the Minnesota Wild on Thursday in St. Paul, Minn., and a stronger hold on fourth place in the West Division.
Sammy Blais, Tyler Bozak and Marco Scandella also scored while goaltender Ville Husso made 26 saves for the Blues, who blew a 3-0 lead but recovered to win a fourth straight game.
Joel Eriksson Ek, Kevin Fiala, Victor Rask and Kirill Kaprizov scored for the Wild. Minnesota goaltender Cam Talbot stopped 16 shots.
With the win, the Blues (23-19-6, 52 points) are five points ahead of the Arizona Coyotes for the final West playoff berth, and St. Louis has two games in hand.
O’Reilly finished the clash by lifting a backhander into the top corner while on a breakaway at 3:43 of the exciting extra frame. The Blues have won four of five meetings with Minnesota.
The third-place Wild (31-14-4, 66 points) went into the current three-game series against the Blues riding a seven-game winning streak, but have dropped the first two clashes. The teams face each other again Saturday in Minnesota and conclude the season with another pair of games in St. Louis.
Blais gave the visitors the quick start they were looking for when he opened the scoring with a rebound tally three minutes into the affair. Bozak’s short-handed tally at the 7:34 mark of the second period doubled the lead.
Scandella made it a 3-0 affair just past the midway point, but that’s when the game became really interesting. Eriksson Ek gave the hosts life at 17:01 of the middle period, and Fiala’s early third-period marker made it a 3-2 margin. Fiala finished with three points.
O’Reilly’s power-play goal restored a two-goal edge for St. Louis at 6:16 of the third period, but the hosts roared back. Rask wired a shot from the right faceoff dot to make it a 4-3 game at 15:21, and Kaprizov tied the game with 51.5 seconds remaining in regulation to force overtime.
–Field Level Media