ANAHEIM, Calif. (AP) - Even on a night when they didn’t play their best, the St. Louis Blues still found a way to pick up a win.
Robert Thomas and Alex Pietrangelo scored 12 seconds apart late in the third period as Blues rallied for a 5-4 victory over the Anaheim Ducks on Wednesday night.
“It was a pretty good comeback,” Pietrangelo said. “It wasn’t our best game. I don’t think anyone here would say that it was our best game, but we found a way to win and we gotta keep building here.”
The Blue have won 14 of their last 18 and remain one of the NHL’s best teams since the calendar flipped to 2019. They are tied with Carolina and Tampa Bay for most wins (20) since Jan. 1 and are 12-4-2 on the road in that stretch.
Thomas got his second goal of the game with 1:04 left on a deflection off the boards and Pietrangelo rifled a shot through traffic for the game-winner with 52 seconds remaining for his 12th goal of the season. It was Pietrangelo’s 22nd game-winning goal, which ties him with Al MacInnis for most by a defenseman in franchise history.
“You could tell by how excited we were on the bench and to get that comeback at the end. That was a big win for us,” Thomas said.
Pietrangelo, Brayden Schenn and Ryan O’Reilly each had a goal and an assist for St. Louis. Vladimir Tarasenko and Colton Parayko each had two assists and Jordan Binnington stopped 23 shots.
“We were aggressive. I like that. We talk about shot attempts all the time,” St. Louis interim coach Craig Berube said.
Jaycob Megna had a goal and an assist for Anaheim while Nick Ritchie, Rickard Rakell and Adam Henrique also scored. Rookie Troy Terry had three assists and John Gibson made 28 saves.
“Couple lucky bounces, really. Off the end wall and off the skate,” Anaheim assistant coach Marty Wilford said. “They played extremely hard and had a chance to win playing a team sitting here waiting for us. We threw everything at them. Just some unlucky bounces that were out of our control.”
Anaheim trailed 3-1 midway through the second but then scored three straight goals. Henrique got his 14th at 5:07 of the third when Binnington had a hard time keeping Megna’s wrist shot in his glove. The puck bobbled out of Binnington’s glove and Henrique pounced on the rebound to give the Ducks a 4-3 advantage.
Ritchie opened the scoring when he took a pass from Terry behind the net, skated out and beat Binnington on his stick side at 5:28 of the first for this ninth of the season and first since Feb. 9.
St. Louis then took the lead with a pair of power-play goals. Schenn was in front of the net and redirected Tarasenko’s pass at 8:03 for his 12th. Seven minutes later, O’Reilly put a wrist shot from the right faceoff circle past a screened Gibson for his 25th.
The Blues took a 3-1 lead at 13:53 of the second when Thomas buried a wrist shot through traffic late in the power play for his sixth.
The Ducks rallied to tie it with two goals 2:12 apart. Rakell put in a one-timer from the left faceoff circle off Troy Terry’s pass on the power play with 4:21 left. The Ducks then tied it with 2:09 remaining in the period when Megna’s wrist shot from the point went through traffic for his first NHL goal.
NOTES: The Ducks allowed three power-play goals for the second time this season, and the 15th time since 2009-10. It is the first time since Nov. 25, 2017, St. Louis has scored three power-play goals. … Anaheim’s Cam Fowler had an assist and tied Scott Niedermayer for the franchise lead for points by a defenseman with 264. Fowler also played in his 606th game for the Ducks, which tied Paul Kariya for fifth in franchise history. … Terry is the first Anaheim rookie to record three assists in a game since Fowler on Jan. 7, 2011 vs. Columbus. … Anaheim RW Jakob Silfverberg got an assist and has a point in three straight games…. O’Reilly has a team-leading 65 points, which is a new career high surpassing the 64 he had in 2013-14 with Colorado. … Tarasenko has 201 career assists. … C Jaden Schwartz picked up an assist to reach 300 career points
UP NEXT
Blues: Continue their three-game California swing Thursday night at Los Angeles.
Ducks: Host Montreal on Friday night to continue their four-game homestand.
___
Follow Joe Reedy at www.twitter.com/joereedy
___
More AP NHL: https://apnews.com/NHL and https://twitter.com/AP_Sports
Please read our comment policy before commenting.