St. Louis Blues barely escape with 3-2 win over Winnipeg Jets in shootout -NHL Update
St. Louis was hoping to avoid an extra regulation matchup as they barely escaped a loss against Nashville Predators but had a repeat, playing in Winnipeg as the Blues stayed lucky in the shootout to emerge as winners, 3-2, Saturday night, February 25, 2012, at the sold-out MTS Centre, in Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada.
In a revolutionary 2011-2012 National Hockey League (NHL) regular season, the St. Louis Blues are now amongst the leading teams as they stand at number four with 83 points, which is definitely surprising as they failed to enter the playoffs last time.
For Winnipeg, taking the match into a shootout benefitted them with the single point as they slipped to the eighth spot in the Eastern Conference, above Washington Capitals with 68.
"We're happy to get a point out of it," Winnipeg’s Blake Wheeler said. "We're happy we battled back against one of the better [Western Conference] teams."
Blues’ veteran goalie, Jaroslav Halak, had another superstar performance as he was widely outshot, 41-16, by his counterpart in Winnipeg's net, Chris Mason, but, still blocked 39 shots including a number of attempts in the crucial SO.
"Our goalie was our best player," Blues’ coach, Ken Hitchcock, said.
"He needed to be. This was a very, very difficult travel situation that we got in, and I'm really happy that we won the hockey game."
St. Louis had a good run in the first period which eventually kept them alive in the remainder of the contest as David Backes and David Perron scored two straight, while Blake Wheeler shined for Winnipeg, answering with back-to-back goals in the second.
Seeing his team fight over and over again was certainly a point to be proud for Jets’ coach, Claude Noel.
"To me," Noel said, "the game that we played today is an identifying game where we can sit and say, 'That's one of the better games I've seen us play'. That's our 'A' game, and now we know where the bar is.”
After capitalising on their first two attempts, both teams failed on the remaining but it was David Perron who got the game-winner on Mason, on their fourth deciding chance.
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