Perron OT Goal Lifts Blues Over Sharks
ST. LOUIS (AP) -- Brayden Schenn tied it late in the third period and David Perron scored on a power play in overtime in the St. Louis Blues' 3-2 victory over the San Jose Sharks on Thursday night.
Mike Hoffman also scored, and Jordan Binnington made 29 saves for the Blues, coming off a record seven straight games against the Arizona Coyotes.
Noah Gregor and John Leonard scored, and Martin Jones made 38 saves for the Sharks.
Perron ended it with a minute left in overtime, beating Jones through the legs on a one-timer off a feed from Hoffman. Perron also had two assists.
With Binnington pulled for an extra attacker, Schenn capitalized on a rebound off Hoffman' shot to tie it with 39.2 seconds left in the third.
The teams will finish the two-game set in St. Louis on Saturday night.
Hoffman's power-play goal at 6:12 of the first period gave the Blues the lead. Hoffman buried a rebound off an Oskar Sundqvist shot for his second goal in three games.
Gregor tied it midway through the second period, scoring on a rebound of a Nicolas Meloche shot. It was Gregor's first goal in five games.
Leonard gave the Sharks a 2-1 lead with 5:29 left in the second when a bouncing puck off a faceoff found him all alone in front of the St. Louis net.
The goal came just over a minute after Martin made two dazzling saves on a bang-bang chance by St. Louis' Ryan O'Reilly and Ivan Barbashev.
Martin also stopped Mackenzie MacEachern on a first-period breakaway.
Barbashev left the game early in the third period after getting hit in the foot by a shot.
BLUELINE SHUFFLE
Blues defenseman Colton Parayko was scratched. He has been dealing with an undisclosed injury throughout the season. Defenseman Marco Scandella returned for St. Louis after missing the last six games with an upper body injury. San Jose defenseman Erik Karlsson did not make the trip after suffering a lower body injury in practice Wednesday. He is day-to-day.
PANDEMIC PLAY
The Blues increased attendance to 2,600, up from 1,400 at their last home game. St. Louis plans to increase that to 3,000 for Monday's game against the Los Angeles Kings with the goal of reaching 25 percent (4,700) in April per city health guidelines.
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