HOLIDAY BLUES
Kyrou scores twice to help St. Louis erase three-goal third-period deficit
ST. LOUIS — Jordan Kyrou scored twice, and Justin Faulk, Jake Neighbours and Brandon Saad also scored in the third period to help the St. Louis Blues erase a three-goal deficit and beat the Chicago Blackhawks 7-5 on Saturday night.
Robert Thomas and Colton Parayko also scored, and Jordan Binnington stopped 15 of 20 shots for St. Louis, which improved to 4-1 under interim coach Drew Bannister.
“I think that’s a big character win for our group,” Saad said. “Any time you can battle back, it’s getting late, you can kind of give up, but our group always believed. We talked at intermission that we were going to come back and win and, thankfully, we did.”
Rookie sensation Connor Bedard scored a lacrosse-style goal in the first period, Nick Foglino scored twice and Arvid Soderblom made 35 saves for Chicago, which lost for the sixth time in seven games.
Anthony Beauvillier and Jason Dickinson also scored for Chicago which blew a multigoal lead for the second time in two nights.
“We’ve got to learn in those moments,” Blackhawks defenseman Jarred Tinordi said. “We’ve had leaks before this year. We’ve kind of given them up and battled back . ... I think sitting back and sitting on your heels is is never the recipe to win.”
Faulk scored his second goal of the season with 2:07 remaining in the third period to give St. Louis a 6-5 lead, and Kyrou scored his second goal of the game and ninth of the season into an empty net with 1:01 remaining in regulation to seal the win.
St. Louis had been 0-14-0 entering Saturday’s game when trailing after two periods.
“I think we felt good after the first one there,” Faulk said about the third period. “But to get the power play and another chance, we knew we had to do something with it. It’s not often you get to do that and that was a good opportunity to give us a real
chance to get back in the game. Jake did a good job going to the net, scored and, at that point, you could sense it in the group.”
Beauvillier deflected a shot past Binnington 4:12 into the first period to give Chicago a 2-1 lead.
Beauvillier’s goal came just 23 seconds after Bedard retrieved a pass from behind the net and cradled the puck with his stick lacrosse-style over Binnington’s glove hand to score his 13th goal of the season to even the game 1-all.
“We’ve seen a couple of things like that,” Blackhawks coach Luke Richardson said. “He’s got quick hands, and I didn’t even realize what happened until it went in. That’s the vision that he has. He can see that when the puck is probably wobbling a little bit. He gets his blade under it and he can scoop it as he’s moving. He’s able to do those things. Unfortunately we couldn’t propel it into a win tonight.”
“I haven’t seen one live, to be honest with you,” Bannister said. “I thought that kind of took the wind out of our sails..”