TAMPA, Fla. _ The Blues wouldn't have beaten the Lightning without Oskar Sundqvist on Wednesday night, though that's ultimately what they had to do.
Sundqvist scored two goals in the second period to put the Blues ahead 2-1, then suffered a lower-body injury and left the game. With him missing in the third period, the Blues managed to score twice, first by Zach Sanford and then another just seconds after a five-on-three advantage had ended, as the Blues snapped a two-game losing streak with a 4-3 win on Wednesday night in Tampa, Fla.
Jordan Binnington faced 35 shots and had to make some big saves under heavy pressure from Tampa Bay throughout the game.
Sundqvist's shorthanded goal got the Blues even in the second, and then he scored again to give them the lead. Ivan Barbashev, who started the game on Sundqvist's line, had his first career three-assist game.
The Blues added to their lead five seconds after a five-on-three power play had ended, with Brayden Schenn finding a hole between Andrei Vasilevskiy and the post.
Tampa Bay cut the lead to one on a power-play by Brayden Point with 5:37 to go. Prior to that, the Blues had killed three Tampa Bay power plays.
It's the second time in four games Sundqvist has had two goals in a game. He has eight on the season but the injury denied him a chance at his first career hat trick.
The two goals put the Blues up 2-1 before a goal by Anthony Cirelli with 8:21 in the second period tied the game.
The Blues had fallen behind 1-0, the sixth time in the past seven games the opponent had scored first, on a goal by Nikita Kucherov. A minute 38 seconds after that goal, Sundqvist knocked the puck out of the Blues end, kept it away from the Tampa players, and came in alone on Vasilevskiy and beat him. It was the third shorthanded goal in Sundqvist's career.
He put the Blues up 2-1 just over three minutes later, as Barbashev kept the puck in the Tampa end and Sundqvist got the puck, skating in and scoring from the right circle.
About a minute after Cirelli tied the game, poking in a rebound, Sundqvist tried to avoid a check by Luke Schenn, Brayden Schenn's brother, and leaped into the glass in the corner, and got hurt. He kept the weight off his right leg as much as he could skating to the bench and went straight to the tunnel, not returning in the period. Between periods, the team said he would not return to the game.
The Blues had to kill off a penalty not long after, and they did.
The Blues were outshot 7-1 early in the first but by the end of the period had a 15-11 edge. Tampa Bay had little in the way of chances in the final 12 minutes of the first period.
The Lightning seem to bring out the best in the Blues. The Blues beat them 3-1 on Nov. 19 at Enterprise Center, one of only two wins for the Blues in their past six games. In that game, the Blues held Tampa Bay to just 18 shots on goal.
The Blues have done a much better job of getting around the net in this one, something that has been lacking from their game recently.
