Isles keep rolling, beat Blues in overtime thriller
Even when they aren’t playing great, the Islanders are managing to keep winning.
Valtteri Filppula scored 1:37 into overtime and the Islanders beat the St. Louis Blues 2-1 Tuesday night for their 12th win in 15 games.
“When we needed a big play, a block or a save, we had that,” coach Barry Trotz said. “And that allows us to survive those moments when we’re not at our best.”
Jordan Eberle had a goal in the first period, and Robin Lehner stopped 30 shots.
“It wasn’t pretty, but we found a way,” Eberle said. “(Lehner) was the reason we won tonight. He was seeing the puck well. He made a lot of big saves, kept us in it.”
David Perron scored the tying goal in the third period for the Blues, and Jordan Binnington — making his fourth straight start and fourth of his career — finished with 23 saves. St. Louis had won three straight and five of its previous seven.
On the winner, Filppula jumped on the ice on a line change, got a pass from Mathew Barzal and skated in on Binnington before beating him from the right side for his 10th.
“It was a good (line) change, we got a 2-on-1 right away and just thought I’d try to shoot it,” Filppula said. “I was happy to see the puck go in.”
Perron tied it at 6:07 of the third as he got a pass from Ryan O’Reilly from behind the net, and put it past Lehner for his team-leading 17th. It extended Perron’s career-high point streak to 12 games, giving him six goals and 15 assists in the stretch.
“It was good to put one in and get a point out of it,” Perron said.
Trailing 1-0, the Blues picked up their intensity in the second period, outshooting the Islanders 18-7.
BLUE JACKETS 4, DEVILS 1
Joonas Korpisalo had 29 saves and three Columbus players recorded a goal and an assist in the win over the Devils in Columbus, Ohio.
Artemi Panarin, PierreLuc Dubois and Cam Atkinson carried the offensive load, and Boone Jenner also scored as Columbus won its fourth straight. The Blue Jackets have won six of their last eight games and 11 of the last 14 while sparring with Washington and Pittsburgh atop the Metropolitan Division.
Blake Coleman scored and Keith Kinkaid had 30 saves for the Devils, who saw a twogame winning streak end.