Brandon Saad scored the winning goal 2:05 into overtime to lift the visiting St. Louis Blues to a 5-4 win over the Minnesota Wild on Saturday afternoon in St. Paul, Minn.
Jordan Kyrou tallied a hat trick for St. Louis (38-30-3, 79 points), which earned two key points as it chases the Vegas Golden Knights for the final wild-card berth in the Western Conference. Jake Neighbours also scored for the Blues.
Marco Rossi scored two goals to lead the Wild (34-28-9, 77 points). Marcus Johansson and Brock Faber also scored for Minnesota.
Blues goaltender Jordan Binnington stopped 30 of 34 shots to earn the win.
Wild goaltender Marc-Andre Fleury turned aside 22 of 27 shots.
Saad turned to his forehand to score the winning goal. Fleury bashed his stick against the goal post in disgust after the decisive play.
St. Louis opened the scoring when Neighbours punched in a rebound with 9:53 left in the first period.
Minnesota pulled even at 1-1 with 15:15 to go in the second period. Johansson scored his 10th goal of the season on a give-and-go play with Faber.
The Wild grabbed a 2-1 lead on Rossi’s first goal of the game with 8:16 remaining in the second period. Kirill Kaprizov picked up his first of two assists.
One minute and five seconds later, the Blues answered with Kyrou’s first of three goals.
Rossi struck again with his second goal and 20th of the season to put Minnesota back on top, 3-2, with 4:49 left in the second period. Kaprizov zipped a pass to Mats Zuccarello, who quickly fed a pass to Rossi for the go-ahead goal.
Kyrou made it 3-3 with his second marker of the game with 16:10 left in the third period.
Midway through the third period, Kyrou scored again to register his fourth career hat trick. He carried the puck across center ice and into the offensive zone before unleashing a wrist shot for his team-leading 25th goal of the season.
The Wild evened the score at 4-4 with 5:09 remaining in the third period. Faber crashed toward the net and punched in a loose puck for his seventh goal.
–Field Level Media
