St. Louis Blues overcome the resisting Edmonton Oilers 1-0 – NHL Update
The lowly Edmonton Oilers did give a tough time to St. Louis Blues, but could not beat them as the latter surged past the former (1-0) in a low scoring National Hockey League (NHL) game on Thursday, January 19, 2012, at the Scottrade Center in St. Louis,
Missouri, United States.
The Oilers’ goalie, Nikolai Khabibulin, was brilliant throughout the game, but did receive support from his other teammates as his counterpart, Jaroslav Halak, did.
Khabibulin made 37 saves and gave away only one, that too in the final period, against an attacking side.
On the contrary, Halak just had to make 15 saves to get his second straight shutout as Oilers did not display an aggressive game-play and were most of the times seen to be defending the puck.
"I feel good, but when you look at the shots, I didn't have to stop many shots, many scoring chances tonight", said Halak.
"Every game is a different game. The guys are playing really good hockey right now and hopefully we can at least keep doing it until the All-Star break".
The Blues played their last game against Dallas Stars and won that game with a small margin (1-0).
After getting the same result, there were concerns about their inability to score goals, but their defenseman, Carlo Colaiacovo, does not think that low scoring games are going to bother the team as long as it stays on the winning track.
"I think that's what we've found within ourselves in this room. If it takes a third period to win a game like we have in the last couple games and we end up gutting it out and finding ways to win ... hey, two points is two points. You're not going to ask
how", Colaiacovo said.
Blues and Oilers struggled to get a scoring move in the first two periods. However, St. Louis broke the shackles in the final when Alex Pietrangelo scored his eighth goal of the season.
Pietrangelo had earlier missed a shot, but did not fail the second time in the same minute.
At 14:36, he fired a shot, but the puck went wide off the net. David Perron made another attempt, but was denied by the brilliant Khabibulin. At 14:46, Pietrangelo finally got the scoring move.
Perron and David Backes had an assist that set up Pietrangelo, who collected the puck, standing near the right side of the goalie.
As soon as the puck got to him, Pietrangelo took a sharp turn and moved to the back of the net, making a 180 degree turn around, and struck the puck into the net after getting to the left side of the goalie.
The victory gave St. Louis Blues their third straight win, while it was a second consecutive defeat for Edmonton Oilers.
Blues next opponent will be Buffalo Sabres on Saturday, whereas Oilers will play their next game against Calgary Flames on the same day.
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