St. Louis Blues manage 2-1 win over Florida Panthers
Matt D'Agostini scored the game-winning goal to lead the St. Louis Blues to a 2-1 victory over the Florida Panthers at the BankAtlantic Centre on Tuesday night.
David Backes also lit the lamp for St. Louis, who have earned at least one point in three consecutive contests (2-0-1) on the heels of a four-game losing streak. Jaroslav Halak finished the game positively, turning aside 30 shots in the win.
An excited D’Agostini said after the game, “We’ve been working hard but just not getting the outcome we wanted. We keep working and getting pucks deep and eventually that’s going to take a toll on their defence. I think we played a pretty solid game all
around.”
Dennis Wideman provided the lone offence for the Panthers, who have won just two games in their previous 10 play-offs (2-4-4). Tomas Vokoun was tagged with two goals on 28 shots in the loss.
Florida got on the board first with a 5-on-3 goal in the seventh minute of the opening session. The goal came when Brad Winchester was called for tripping and Roman p***k slipped the puck over the glass and garnered the two-minute minor for delay of game.
Stephen Weiss then controlled the puck at the top of right circle and threw a pass across the slot to Wideman, who fired a successful one-timer past the goalie.
Backes then pulled the Blues even at 1-1 with a minute remaining in the middle period. Florida turned the puck over at their blue line, where Brad Boyes gathered it and passed it to Andy McDonald along the side boards. McDonald skated through the left circle
toward the net, and then passed it to Backes in front, who easily knocked it home with a wrist shot for his 18th goal of the 2010-11 season.
Backes praised his goalkeeper after the game. He said, “We finally put together a full 60 minutes and got rewarded for it. It took us a while but our goalie is good enough to keep us in games when we haven’t been up to snuff.”
In the latter stages of the final stanza, St. Louis took a decisive 2-1 lead, courtesy of D'Agostini's 12th goal of the season with four minutes to play in the game. D'Agostini carried the puck along the half-wall in the neutral zone and passed it onto the
stick of Vladimir Sobotka, who rushed down the right-wing as a 3-on-1 break emerged for St. Louis.
From the circle, Sobotka tipped it into the low slot for D'Agostini, who had followed the play the length of the ice, and banged a low wrist shot to seal the game at 2-1.
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