Jonathan Marchessault scored the overtime winner to lift the visiting Vegas Golden Knights past the St. Louis Blues 2-1 Monday night.
Pavel Dorofeyev also scored for the Golden Knights (39-25-7, 85 points), who won their third straight game to move five points ahead of the Blues in the race for the final Western Conference playoff spot.
Vegas goaltender Logan Thompson stopped 31 shots and denied Pavel Buchnevich’s overtime penalty shot.
Brandon Saad scored and Jordan Binnington made 32 saves for the Blues (38-30-4, 80 points), who are 6-1-1 in their past eight games. Vegas is 6-2-0 in its past eight.
Dorofeyev put the Golden Knights up 1-0 by coming out of the right corner to stuff a shot through Binnington 5:59 into the game.
St. Louis dressed just 11 forwards, then lost Saad for much of the first period when Golden Knights defenseman Brayden McNabb hit him along the wall.
Saad returned in the second period, but Oskar Sundqvist exited for the remainder of the game with a lower-body injury sustained after McNabb hit him along the wall.
The Golden Knights outshot St. Louis 12-6 in the second period and controlled most of the play. The Blues’ best chance came when defenseman Nick Leddy couldn’t convert a partial short-handed breakaway.
Binnington stopped Jack Eichel 70 seconds into the third period, getting his glove on Eichel’s point-blank shot off a toe-drag cut to the middle.
Buchnevich had a near-miss for the Blues when his deflection popped just over the crossbar. Then Thompson stretched his left leg back to stop Kevin Hayes on a breakaway to maintain the 1-0 lead.
The Blues experienced more near-misses when Torey Krug hit the crossbar and Brayden Schenn fired a shot off the left post. At the other end, Binnington stopped Anthony Mantha’s breakaway with 6:50 left to keep the Blues within a goal.
Saad tied the game 1-1 with 5:07 left to play by driving toward the left post to punch in Schenn’s cross-ice backhand pass.
–Field Level Media
