VANCOUVER, British Columbia (AP) — Brayden Schenn scored at 1:54 of overtime to give the St. Louis Blues a 4-3 victory over the Vancouver Canucks on Wednesday night.
Jake Neighbours had a goal and an assist for St. Louis. Alexey Toropchenko and Pavel Buchnevich also scored, and Joel Hofer made 29 saves.
“We were able to gut it out defensively,” Schenn said. “Had a couple big blocks, guys playing hard for one another, so it’s good to see — and guys stepping up scoring goals.”
Pius Suter had his second career hat trick for Vancouver, exactly three years after his first one. Quinn Hughes and Brock Boeser contributed two assists apiece.
“It was intense,” Neighbours said. “They came at us hard and I thought until the third (period) we did a good job keeping them to the outside and not allowing too much in the middle of the ice. But you know they’re going to get their looks and when they did, (Hofer) was there and found a way to get two points.”
Casey DeSmith stopped 14 shots for Vancouver.
“Instead of continuing what we’re doing, we started to get away from it and we gave them two turnovers, we gave them a power play and the momentum shifted,” Canucks coach Rick Tocchet said. “We just have to stop these turnovers at crucial times. You just can’t do that. You have to stay in a team game.”
Suter scored three times in the third period to push the game into overtime. He tied it with 52 seconds remaining in regulation after a shot rebounded off J.T. Miller’s skate, allowing the Swiss forward to bat home the puck.
Suter pulled the Canucks within one on a power play at 5:42 of the third after Hofer missed the puck behind the net.
“I don’t know what I was really doing there,” Hofer said. “I thought our guy was pretty close to me, and it is what it is. I’ll learn from it. I’m not going to stop handling the puck because of it. I’ll just learn from it and I’m gonna move on.”
UP NEXT
Blues: At Seattle on Friday night.
Canucks: Host Columbus on Saturday night.
