EditorsNote: added missing word
Brayden Schenn scored the game-winner in the third round of the shootout, and Jordan Binnington had 42 saves to lead the St. Louis Blues to a 5-4 victory over the Vegas Golden Knights on Tuesday night in Las Vegas.
David Perron scored two goals and also scored in the first round of the shootout, Jaden Schwartz had a goal and an assist, and Jordan Kyrou also scored a goal for St. Louis, which improved to 4-0 in the first games of back-to-backs.
Max Pacioretty scored his seventh career hat trick, including a pair of goals in the third period to rally Vegas from a 4-2 deficit, and Alex Tuch also scored for the Golden Knights. Robin Lehner had 21 saves.
After Perron scored on a backhand to start the shootout, Shea Theodore tied it in the second round with a backhand that went in off the post. Schenn beat Lehner with a backhand to begin the third round, and Binnington then stopped Tuch's backhand try to win it.
Tuch gave Vegas a 1-0 lead at the 3:17 mark of the first period when he raced up the right wing on a two-on-one and beat Binnington with a wrist shot on his glove side for his third goal of the season.
But St. Louis responded with three goals on seven shots in a 6:02 span to take a 3-1 lead.
Perron tied it off a feed from Ryan O'Reilly after a turnover by Alec Martinez behind the net, then gave the Blues the lead with a power-play goal with a slap shot from the right point past a screen by Schwartz.
Schwartz made it 3-1 with his second goal of the season with a slap shot from above the left circle past Lehner's glove side.
Vegas cut it to 3-2 early in the second period when Pacioretty received a spinning pass from Mark Stone in the slot and beat Binnington with a snap shot to his glove side.
Kyrou extended the Blues' lead to 4-2 midway through the period when he outmuscled Alex Pietrangelo for a puck near center ice and then broke in and beat Lehner top shelf for his third goal of the season.
Pacioretty then made it 4-3 with a five-on-three power-play goal at the 10:36 mark of the third period when he fired a shot from inside the blue line past a William Karlsson screen. He then tied it with 3:25 remaining with a one-timer from the low slot off a pass from Martinez to force overtime.
The Golden Knights played despite announcing a couple of hours before the game that head coach Peter DeBoer and his staff would sit out the contest and self-isolate for COVID-19 protocols.
General Manager Kelly McCrimmon, who won over 400 games as a head coach of the Brandon Wheat Kings of the Western Hockey League, where he coached current Vegas players Stone and Ryan Reaves as well as Schenn of the Blues, was the acting head coach.
He was joined on the bench by three coaches from the nearby AHL Henderson Silver Knights: Manny Viveiros, Jamie Heward and Joel Ward.
--Field Level Media
