The St. Louis Blues will try to complete a season-opening three-game road sweep when they oppose the Vegas Golden Knights on Friday in Las Vegas.
After beginning last season with a 3-4-1 record, the Blues are off to a far better start in the new campaign.
The Blues opened their season by erasing a two-goal deficit to defeat the Seattle Kraken 3-2 on Tuesday. Then they erased a three-goal third-period deficit to earn a 5-4 overtime victory over the San Jose Sharks on Thursday.
Blues coach Drew Bannister scrambled his forward lines in the third period at San Jose, and the team responded with a frantic rally.
The fourth line generated the first two goals of the period, with center Radek Faska scoring on a wraparound and winger Alexey Toropchenko setting up defenseman Ryan Suter breaking into the slot for the tally that cut the deficit to 4-3.
Defenseman Justin Faulk tied the game in the final minute of regulation with the Blues playing six-on-five, having pulled their goalie.
“We just had to find a way to see if we could dig deep and find something in the third, and we did,” Faulk said.
Then the Blues won the overtime faceoff, kept control of the puck and won on Brayden Schenn’s blast from the left wing 45 seconds into the session.
Jordan Kyrou and Robert Thomas each had two assists in the game. They have combined to produce seven points in two games.
“You saw good growth in Jordan’s game last year in the last six weeks,” Bannister said. “Robbie had an outstanding breakout season for us last year. I don’t see any reason for them not to grow in their roles and get better as hockey players here.”
The Golden Knights opened their season with an 8-4 victory over the visiting Colorado Avalanche on Wednesday.
“Did I expect an 8-4 game tonight? Absolutely not,” Vegas coach Bruce Cassidy said postgame. “We weren’t bad defensively tonight. I just think we gave up some bad plays and got a little tired running around.”
The No. 1 Vegas forward line was able to match Colorado’s firepower. Former Blues forward Ivan Barbashev had two goals and two assists in the game playing with center Jack Eichel (four assists) and winger Mark Stone (two goals, one assist).
“It’s fun playing with them,” Barbashev said. “It felt good. We got a lot of things to prove in the next couple of days, but you know, got a couple of goals and won the game, most importantly.”
Vegas was able to score twice on three power-play opportunities, getting man-advantage goals from Victor Olofsson and Stone. Olofsson also scored at even strength as the Golden Knights had three players score twice apiece.
“We had good patience,” Cassidy said. “We still attacked. We didn’t force things that weren’t there. We had good shots to score, obviously.”
The Blues could be without forward Alexandre Texier, who missed the Thursday game with an upper-body injury. Zack Bolduc replaced him in the lineup against the Sharks.
–Field Level Media