ST. LOUIS _ Carl Gunnarssson averaged only nine points _ a season _ during his first four seasons with the Blues. After scoring the game-winning goal in Saturday's 3-2 triumph over Ottawa, he now has points in five consecutive games _ two goals and three assists.
He's played in only 14 games, missing the bulk of the season due to injury and illness. Gunnarsson's second goal of the season came with 7:44 to play and helped get the Blues back at .500 at 21-21-5 Ottawa, which had won four of five entering Saturday's game, fell to 19-25-5.
The Blues were in position to take control of the game, with 1 minute, 54 seconds worth of power play too open the third period.
Instead, Ottawa scored a short-handed goal, off the skate of former Blue Magnus Paajarvi, to tie the game at 2 just one minute into the period.
Vince Dunn's second goal in four games gave the Blues a 2-1 lead after two periods.
After a stretch of extended offensive zone time, Dunn's shot from the left point zipped high past the glove of Ottawa goalie Craig Anderson with 2:32 left in the period.
It was Dunn's fifth goal of the season, matching the total from his entire rookie season a year ago.
The Blues had all kinds of chances in the period _ by Jordan Kyrou, Oskar Sundqvist, Ivan Barbashev and Mackenzie MacEachern. But over the second half of the period, Ottawa made a push that resulted in several strong saves by Binnington.
But the save of the period came when defenseman Colton Paryko swatted away a jam shot by Brady Tkachuk just before the puck crossed the goal line. It was the third time Parayko has saved a goal in that fashion in the last four Blues games.
Vladimir Tarasenko went glove side on Ottawa goalie Craig Anderson for his 16th goal of the season tying the game 1-1.
Ryan O'Reilly won the faceoff and shuffled it over to Tarasenko for his 30th assist of the season. For Tarasenko, it was his seventh goal in 11 career games against the Senators.
That goal came at the 7:50 mark of the first period and was Tarasenko's first home goal since Nov. 24 against Winnipeg.
A little more than 3 minutes earlier, Ottawa took a 1-0 lead on a Nick Paul goal that trickled through Binnington's pads. It was Paul's first goal of the season and just his fourth in 54 career NHL games.
It came just 14 seconds after the Blues had killed off a holding penalty against MacEachern.
