Jordan Binnington stopped 30 shots plus all three he saw in the shootout as the St. Louis Blues edged the visiting Seattle Kraken 2-1 on Saturday.
Jordan Kyrou scored for the Blues in regulation time and Robert Thomas scored the shootout winner.
Jaden Schwartz scored for the Kraken and Joey Daccord made 25 saves for Seattle, which lost its third straight game to open the season.
Blues winger Pavel Buchnevich was knocked out with an upper-body injury on a first-period hit by Kraken defenseman Jamie Oleksiak.
Seattle started fast, pinned the Blues in and earned an early 5-1 shots advantage. After killing off their first penalty, the Kraken resumed applying pressure.
Vince Dunn beat Binnington with a left point shot, but Jared McCann hit Binnington’s mask with his stick on the play — and the Blues successfully challenged the goal for goaltender interference.
McCann subsequently got a clean short-handed break-in up the left wing, but he rang a shot off the left post. Seattle built a 9-4 edge in first-period shots on goal, but the game remained scoreless.
The Kraken finally broke through for a 1-0 lead on Schwartz’s power-play goal 40 seconds into the second period. He parked in front of Binnington and deflected in Oliver Bjorkstrand’s slap shot.
The Blues tied the game 1-1 at the 7:49 mark of the period when Kyrou converted a give-and-go play with Thomas with his slot shot off the rush.
Daccord survived a couple of goalmouth scrambles midway through the third period as the Blues applied more offensive pressure.
After Bjorkstrand hit the post with a potential go-ahead shot from point-blank range with 7:25 left to play, Daccord stopped Sammy Blais on a nifty break-in with five minutes to play to keep the game tied.
Binnington stopped Dunn’s shot from the lower left circle with 35 seconds left in regulation to force overtime, and then he stopped Adam Larsson with 28 seconds left to force the shootout.
–Field Level Media
