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 After the Blues let the Boston Bruins tie the score with goals
2:08 apart in the third period, right winger T.J. Oshie scored 3:29
into overtime to give St. Louis a 3-2 victory on Thursday night.
Oshie said he just happened to be in the right place to play the
puck.
"It was a pretty lucky bounce," Oshie said. "It hit off me and went
toward the net and I just started whacking and poked it in there. It
might have gone under his arm or something. We'll take the two
points."
Boston goalie Tuukka Rask knew there was not much he could have done
on the play and was more impressed by his team's comeback to force
the overtime.
"We battled hard," Rask said. "I thought we played a solid game. We
probably deserved more, but playing on the road against a good team
you have to be satisfied with getting a point. You have to try and
get more, but one point is still good."
St. Louis coach Ken Hitchcock was pleased with how his team
responded after giving up the two goals, by Bruins center David
Krejci and left winger Brad Marchand, especially considering the
Blues had done the exact same thing twice in the past week.
"I know we gave up two goals in the third period, but I thought we
competed harder," Hitchcock said. "When the game got tied ,our sense
or urgency, our puck battles and board battles increased and it
continued into overtime.
"We're happy we won, but it also gives us a chance to know what we
need to get better at. We have a real good feel for that right now."
Hitchcock described one of the team's problems as being too quiet on
the ice.
"We're not helping each other, so we look slow at times," he said.
"In the third period when we started to talk and got into it, good
things started to happen again. We've got a big learning curve still
going on. We're in the middle of an evaluation curve too."
The Blues built the 2-0 lead on goals by left winger Alexander
Steen, his 28th of the year, and left winger Jaden Schwartz.
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Boston coach Claude Julien was upset that a penalty was not called
on the play when Steen scored. Blues center Maxim Lapierre hit
Bruins right winger Loui Eriksson with a high stick, but there was
no whistle from the referees. The preliminary report was that
Eriksson lost two teeth on the hit.
"It wasn't so much that it wasn't called," Julien said. "The
linesman saw it and the rule is the linesman can call it if it's a
high-stick and there's blood. We thought it was going to get called
because he told us he had seen it, but that whistle had to be blown
right away and it wasn't. We had a player (Eriksson) that lost some
teeth and had quite a few stitches in his mouth."
Julien was, however, pleased with his team's effort.
"I'm proud of the way we played from the first line to the fourth
line," he said. "All of our D's were really good tonight. I thought
our team played extremely well and probably deserved better. It was
an unfortunate bounce to lose that game in overtime but still a
great effort from our team."
Winning the game, despite blowing the two-goal lead, made it a good
night for Oshie and the Blues.
"It just seemed like they capitalized on a couple of shots," Oshie
said. "We don't want to get in a habit of this. We work hard to get
the lead and we've got to hold it, especially in our home barn."
NOTES: The Bruins were without their captain, D Zdeno Chara, who
left the team early for the Olympics so he could carry the flag of
his native country, Slovakia, in the opening ceremonies on Friday.
... Blues LW Brenden Morrow played in his 900th NHL game, becoming
the 47th active player to reach that milestone. ... St. Louis RW
Vladimir Tarasenko did not play because of the flu. ... The Bruins
will host the Ottawa Senators on Saturday in their final game before
the Olympic break. The Blues play host to the Winnipeg Jets on
Saturday before sending nine players off to Sochi, Russia.
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