EDMONTON, Alberta (AP) — Bo Horvat scored on a breakaway at 5:55 of overtime Friday night to give the Vancouver Canucks a 4-3 victory over the defending champion St. Louis Blues and a 2-0 lead in the Western Conference series.
Horvat took a stretch pass from Quinn Hughes and chipped the puck through Jordan Binnington's legs.
“I’m feeling pretty good about my game, but the most important thing is it takes an entire team to win a hockey game, and we’re pretty solid right now from our goaltending all the way up,” Horvat said. “We’re playing some pretty good hockey right now. We’ve got to keep it going.”
Game 3 of the best-of seven series is Sunday.
St. Louis overcame a 3-1 deficit in the third period to tie it, with Jaden Schwartz tying it with eight seconds left. With Binnington pulled for the extra attacker, Alex Pietrangelo shot the puck from the point, and it was redirected past Markstrom. It was initially waved off as a high stick but ruled a goal on review. David Perron was initially credited with the goal.
“Some people would say that it could help that there are no fans in the stands for that, because if you’re the home team and you score a late goal that building erupts,” Vancouver's Tanner Pearson said. “We regrouped in the room (before overtime) and came out strong and finished it off.”
Horvat opened the scoring in the first with an end-to-end, short-handed rush. Wheeling and picking up speed in his own faceoff circle, Horvat hit high gear through the neutral zone, blew past Brayden Schenn, turned Jaden Schwartz inside out and fired a wrist shot low past Binnington's blocker.
Horvat also scored twice in the opener and has six goals in the postseason.
“We’ve just got to be harder on him one on one, simple as that,” Pietrangelo said. “He’s a strong player, gets up the ice well ... We’ve just got to find a way to take away his space. We all know that. It’s going to be a collective effort.”
Pearson and Elias Pettersson also scored for Vancouver, and Markstrom made 34 stops. Ryan O’Reilly and Sammy Blais added goals for the Blues, and Binnington turned back 21 shots.
Pearson made it 2-0 on a power-play midway through the second, and O’Reilly countered on another power play late in the period. Pettersson connected in a power play early in the third, and Blais made it a one-goal game with 10:58 to go.
NOTES: In the third period, Schenn hit Canucks defenseman Tyler Myers from behind. Meyers fell awkwardly head-first into the boards, stayed down for a few minutes and went to the dressing room under his own power. ... Vancouver was 2 of 3 on the power play. St. Louis was 1 of 6.
