Brayden Schenn scored at 2:41 of overtime to give the St. Louis Blues a 4-3 victory over the Vancouver Canucks on Saturday night. Colton Parayko, Vladimir Sobotka and Joel Edmundson scored in regulation for Western Conference-leading St. Louis. Paul Stastny had three assists and Jake Allen stopped 20 shots. On the winner, Schenn cut through the neutral zone and across the blue line and beat Canucks goalie Anders Nilsson high on the blocker side for his eighth goal of the season. Sven Baertschi had a goal and an assist, and Brock Boeser and Markus Granlund also scored for Vancouver, which has lost four of five (1-3-1). Loui Eriksson had two assists and Nilsson finished with 27 saves. . Nilsson made 27 saves for the Canucks, who have lost four of five. Trailing 3-2 after two periods, the Blues tied the score at 4:46 of the third when Edmundson fired a shot past Nilsson off a feed from Stastny after some good work by Alex Pietrangelo to force a turnover by Canucks defenseman Derek Pouliot in the corner.The goal came moments after Nilsson made a nice pad stop on Sobotka’s partial breakaway.
Nilsson, who started for the second time in three games after sitting out seven straight, then made another difficult save on Vladimir Tarasenko after he skated around Alexander Edler. Granlund then put the Canucks ahead 2-1 at 5:23 of the second on a short-handed 2-on-1 rush where he took a nice feed from Eriksson before outwaiting Allen and emphatically burying his third of the of the season through the five-hole. Baertschi made it 3-1 on the power play at 10:58 when he swept Eriksson’s rebound past Allen for his seventh, but Sobotka got the Blues back within one with 6:50 to go on a low shot that beat Nilsson after the Canucks failed to clear their zone. Vancouver looked to have gone back ahead by two in the final minute of the period, but Thomas Vanek’s goal was waved off after it was judged a St. Louis player touched the puck with his hand on a delayed penalty seconds before it entered the net.
Boeser, who leads the Canucks in scoring with seven goals and 10 assists despite playing just 17 of Vancouver’s 20 games, got his team on the board at 11:44 of the first after winning consecutive puck battles down low against two Blues players. The 21-year-old rookie eventually wheeled out of the corner and fired a shot that went through the legs of St. Louis defenseman Carl Gunnarsson and short-side on Allen, with Bo Horvat providing a screen in front. Vancouver had a couple of other opportunities to extend the lead before Edmundson hit the post at the other end. St. Louis eventually tied the score with 1:26 left in the period when Parayko sent a one-timer from a Stastny feed for his second. The Blues nearly grabbed the lead at 3:45 of the second when Tarasenko snapped a shot from the face-off dot that snuck through Nilsson, but the Vancouver goalie reached back with his blocker hand and grabbed the puck as it dribbled toward the goal-line.
