LAS VEGAS _ The St. Louis Blues' playoff express hit a bump in the road Friday at T-Mobile Arena.
A 4-3 overtime loss to the expansion Vegas Golden Knights snapped the team's winning streak at six games in a row, and with just five games left in the regular season the Blues still have work to do to avoid missing the playoffs for the first time in seven seasons. At 43-28-4, they have 92 points in their quest for a wild-card spot in the Western Conference.
Johnathan Marchessault scored the game winner, his second goal of the night, just 22 seconds into overtime.
Vegas (49-22-7) avoided the fate of current playoff teams Boston, Columbus and San Jose, who all fell to the Blues during their winning streak. The Golden Knights can clinch the Pacific Division title with a victory Saturday over San Jose.
Entering the game, the Blues were in line to play the Golden Knights in the first round of the playoffs. Coach Mike Yeo reminded his team of that potential pairing before the contest.
"Let's send a message here in this game that we wouldn't be very much fun to play against," Yeo said.
It was a message the Blues couldn't quite deliver despite rallying to tie the score in the third period.
The Blues needed at least a point to stay in a playoff slot because both Colorado and Anaheim won Friday. The Ducks have 93 points and the Avalanche have 92. But the Blues have a game in hand on both teams, and have two games in hand with the Los Angeles Kings, barely in third place in the Pacific Division with 94 points.
Oskar Sundqvist won a dinner bet with Chris Thorburn against San Jose over who would score first this season. Turns out Thorburn was just one game too late in scoring his first of the season, with a huge goal for the Blues at the 6:14 mark of the third period to tie the score at 3-all.
First Thorburn, and then Sundqvist, helped keep the puck alive down below the Vegas net. The puck went to Scottie Upshall, playing his first game since suffering a knee injury March 3 in Dallas. Upshall fed Thorburn from behind the net, and Thorburn skated in front of Vegas goalie Malcolm Subban and beat him through the legs.
With a healthy sprinkling of Blues fans in the building, the crowd at T-Mobile was jacked up from the opening faceoff. Chants of "Let's go, Blues!" erupted less than three minutes into the game when Patrik Berglund took a feed in the near slot from Alexander Steen and buried it past goalie Subban.
It was Berglund's 13th goal of the season and his fifth in the last nine games. The Blues had the better of it in the early going, using tenacious checking to get most of the early offensive zone time. They even had a pair of power-play chances basically back to back, with just 16 seconds in between them, but couldn't stand the prosperity.
In fact, roughly midway through the second Vegas penalty _ a delay of game penalty against Subban for firing the puck over the glass _ the Golden Knights tied the score on a short-handed goal by William Karlsson. Karlsson's 41st goal of the season came after he was sprung on a breakaway on a stretch pass from Cody Eakin.
It became 2-1 Vegas at the 13:31 mark of the opening period when Marchessault went backdoor on Jake Allen for his 26th goal of the season.
But the Blues had all sorts of chances and near chances in the period, and cashed in at 16:09 when Jaden Schwartz kept the puck alive along the boards and then fed Brayden Schenn in the right faceoff circle. Schenn pivoted and ripped a shot past Subban for his 26th goal, matching his career high set in 2015-16 in Philadelphia.
That made it a 2-2 game in a first period that included only 15 shots combined by the teams. Subban, by the way, was starting in place of Marc-Andre Fleury, making him the sixth backup goalie the Blues have faced in their past seven games.
Schenn had another great chance, this time from the slot, three minutes into the second period, but Subban made the save. Oskar Sundqvist found himself with the puck right at Subban's feet three minutes later, but former Blue Brad Hunt got his stick in the way to ruin what looked like a great chance.
The Blues survived a Berglund slashing penalty midway through the second, but the Golden Knights had more offensive zone time than in the first period.
With the period winding down, Vegas took the lead 3-2 after a takeaway in the St. Louis zone. Schwartz slipped, and Tomas Tatar came up with the puck around the blue line. He fed Erik Haula down low, who went across the goal mouth for James Neal. Neal, camped near the net, beat Allen high with a quick shot for his 25th goal of the season at the 16:35 mark.
Young defenseman Jordan Schmaltz, pressed into the lineup following Carl Gunnarsson's season-ending knee injury last Saturday in Columbus, suffered an upper-body injury in the first period and did not return to the game.
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