Blues hold on to defeat the Golden Knights 5-4 after giving up 2 late goals

LAS VEGAS (AP) — Jake Neighbours and Brayden Schenn scored during a shootout after St. Louis gave up two goals in the final minutes of regulation, and the Blues held on to defeat the Vegas Golden Knights 5-4 on Monday.

Jack Eichel and Pavel Dorofeyev scored for Vegas inside the final four minutes to tie the game and force overtime, the latter with an extra attacker on the ice and 30 seconds left in regulation.

Schenn, Neighbours, Nathan Walker and Cam Fowler scored for the Blues in regulation. Jordan Binnington made 28 saves.

St. Louis inched closer in the Western Conference playoff race and is now tied with Vancouver, both with 50 points and one point shy of Calgary for the second wild-card spot.

Tomas Hertl and Brett Howden each added a goal for the Golden Knights and Shea Theodore had four assists. Adin Hill stopped 24 shots.

Vegas lost for the sixth time in seven games, but moved one point ahead of Edmonton in the Pacific Division.

Takeaways

Blues: Since Dec. 23, the Blues have scored an NHL-best 51 goals and average a league-high 3.92 goals per game.

Golden Knights: Hertl, who scored his ninth power-play goal of the season, has 10 points (5 goals, 5 assists) the last six games.

Key moment

With an extra attacker, the Golden Knights worked the puck around the offensive zone to perfection, with Theodore finding Dorofeyev, who fired the game-tying goal past Binnington to tie the game at 4-all.

Key stat

Nine of the 15 games the Knights have hosted St. Louis have gone to overtime, including three shootouts. The Golden Knights had won six of the first eight that went past regulation before Monday’s loss.

Up next

The teams meet again and conclude a home-and-home series in St. Louis on Thursday.

__

AP NHL: https://apnews.com/hub/NHL