Pietrangelo scores twice as Leafs get Blues
ST. LOUIS — Alex Pietrangelo is off to an outstanding start. Same for the St. Louis Blues.
Pietrangelo scored twice, Brayden Schenn had four assists and the Blues beat the Toronto Maple Leafs 6-4 on Saturday.
Vladimir Tarasenko, Joel Edmundson, Magnus Paajarvi and Vladimir Sobotka also scored for the Blues, who improved to 6-1 at home. Jaden Schwartz had three assists and Jake Allen made 26 saves. Edmundson and Pietrangelo gave St. Louis a league-best 17 goals from defencemen this season.
“Even the nights when we don’t score on the back end, we’re getting chances, we’re getting a lot of shots,” Pietrangelo said. “The forward are doing a really good job of protecting us when we do go down and we’re kind of just rotating those five guys and when you do that you’re going to get opportunities all over the ice.”
Pietrangelo’s 15 points leads all NHL defencemen.
“He’s unbelievable defensively,” said Schenn, who notched his first career four-point game. “Good stick. He plays against the top forward every night. I really believe, he’s playing in St. Louis here, maybe it’s not a name market as far as coverage as some of the Canadian teams get, but he could be in the running quietly for the Norris Trophy.”
The Blues have earned points in six of their last seven home games against Toronto (5-1-1).
Tyler Bozak scored twice, Andreas Borgman had a goal and an assist and Connor Brown also scored for the Maple Leafs, who lost for the fifth time in six games. Frederik Andersen made 27 saves.
Andersen “was keeping us in that game and once we give up those opportunities that we did, I don’t think any goalie in the league is going to save a lot of them,” Bozak said.
“To me you got to have 20 guys on deck and ready to go and we didn’t have that tonight,” Maple Leafs coach Mike Babcock said.
MONTREAL 5 WINNIPEG 4 (OT)
WINNIPEG — Montreal Canadiens captain Max Pacioretty scored a power-play goal at 3:07 of overtime to give the Canadiens a 5-4 victory over the Winnipeg Jets.
The Jets had a 4-2 lead at 6:39 of the third period, but Tomas Plekanec and Jeff Petry scored on Connor Hellebuyck to make it 4-4 at 15:16.
“From past experience just this year, too many times we maybe felt sorry for ourselves, felt like there was nothing we could do,” Pacioretty said of the team’s reaction to being down in games. This night, though, he felt the “energy on the bench” and the support his teammates were giving each other.
“There were some shifts there I thought we tired out their top guys, and that goes a long way and gives you a chance to come back in the game,” he said.