The Pittsburgh Penguins defeated the St. Louis Blues 3-2 in overtime at Enterprise Center yesterday.
Forwards Bryan Rust and Evgeni Malkin scored, and defenseman Marcus Pettersson had a goal and an assist for the Penguins, who improved to 28-21-9 on the season and broke their four-game losing streak. Goalie Tristan Jarry also made 25 saves and is now 5-0-0 in his career against St. Louis.
Defenseman Justin Faulk had a goal and an assist, and goalie Jordan Binnington made 45 saves for the Blues, which tied his career high. The Blues fell to 26-28-5 and are now 0-3-2 in their past five. St. Louis was looking for a win following their overtime loss against the Vancouver Canucks on Thursday, in which head coach Craig Berube did not mince words on the team’s play.
The scoring didn’t kick off until 23 seconds into the second period when forward Pavel Buchnevich gave the Blues the 1-0 lead on a redirection. Just under seven minutes into the period, Malkin tied the game at 1-1 for the Penguins after burying a feed from Rust.
At 14:32 of the third period, Pettersson scored his first of the season to give the Penguins the 2-1 lead. At 17:33, Faulk tied the game at 2-2 when he jammed home the puck in a battle in the crease.
Just over a minute into overtime, Rust redirected a feed from Malkin to give the Penguins the 3-2 win. The goal would give Rust his 14th career point against the Blues in his 10th career game and Malkin his sixth point in his last four games. The Penguins also improved to 9-1-0 against the Central Division this year.
Earlier yesterday, the Blues claimed forward Kasperi Kapanen off of waivers from the Penguins. He was not in the lineup and is expected to arrive today and play tomorrow for St. Louis.
Blues defenseman Torey Krug played 19:13 after missing the Blues’ previous game with a lower-body injury. Penguins defenseman Jan Rutta returned to the lineup after missing the past 15 games with an upper-body injury. He played 13 minutes. St. Louis also played with 11 forwards and seven defensemen after they sent down forward Nikita Alexandrov to Springfield of the AHL.
The Penguins host the Tampa Bay Lightning today at 6 PM.
