St. Louis Blues

St. Louis Blues versus New York Rangers

The St. Louis Blues traveled to Madison Square Garden to take on the New York Rangers on Tuesday, March 3. The Blues were looking for their eighth straight win, while the Rangers were looking to improve their position in the Wild Card race for the playoffs. The game was televised on Fox Sports Midwest in the St. Louis area and other local markets.

The 0-0 tie was broke about half way through the first period. Mika Zibanejad broke into the scoring when he scored a power play goal 12 minutes and 26 seconds into the first period of action. The Rangers would get their power play around 11 and a half minutes into the period when Robert Bortuzzo was caught for tripping. Bortuzzo had been a healthy scratch in recent games for the Blues but was in the lineup tonight instead of Carl Gunnarsson. It was Zibanejad 33 goal on the year. With a little less than a minute left to play in the first, Jacob de la Rose would be booked for interference and St. Louis would be back on the penalty kill. The end of the first period came with the Rangers leading 1-0 with both teams tallying 7 shots on goal.

Shortly after the Blues had killed off the penalty following over from the end of the first period, the Blues would get a power play of their own. Ryan Strome of the Rangers was called for slashing. St. Louis defensemen Colton Parayko would find the back of the net on the power play for his ninth goal of the year. This would knot things up at 1 apiece. St. Louis would have to kill off another penalty later in the second period as Justin Faulk would go to the box for slashing. The Blues would kill this penalty off and the score would stay the same through the rest of the second period. The game was tied 1-1 going into the third period, but the Blues held the upper hand with 9 shots on goal during the second period, compared to the Rangers 7.

There was now 20 minutes left to play in the game. Halfway through the third period, Brayden Schenn scored for St. Louis, giving them the lead 2-1 with ten minutes left in the game. Schenn got his 25th goal on the year, assisted by Jaden Schwartz and Colton Parayko. The Rangers would come up short in their fight back for the rest of the third period. The Blues added an empty net goal by Jaden Schwartz to bring the score to 3-1. The game would finish 3-1 with St. Louis taking 22 shots on goal and New York with 26.

The first star of the game was Jaden Schwartz, totaling one goal and one assist for the Blues, followed by Jordan Binnington, stopping 25 of 26 shots faced in the net for St. Louis, and lastly Colton Parayko playing on defense for the blues and adding one goal and one assist. The St. Louis Blues won their eighth straight game as they hold first place in the Central Division.