B.J. Crombeen’s tie-breaker in the third period led the lowly St Louis Blues to a 2-1 home victory over the slumping New York Rangers on Monday.
Crombeen collected his 10th goal of the season 14:46 into the third to give the Blues, the last placed team in the Central Division, a second consecutive win.
The score came after St Luis defenseman Barret Jackman powered a left-wing slap shot toward the goal that Rangers netminder Henrik Lundqvist denied with his left pad.
PHOTO: AP
Crombeen then beat New York defenseman Marc Staal to the puck and flipped it over a fallen Lundqvist.
“It [the puck] was kind of bouncing but it came out on my stick, and I just wanted to wait until he [Lundqvist] was down and out of it,” Crombeen told reporters.
Carlo Colaiacovo put St Louis ahead 10:27 into the second before New York’s Lauri Korpikoski tied the score about six minutes later.
The loss was the third in a row for the Rangers, third in the Atlantic Division. They have won only once in nine games to drop to sixth place in the Eastern Conference with 66 points, two points ahead of the final playoff spot.
Blues netminder Chris Mason had 19 saves as the Rangers took only seven shots in the first period, nine in the second and four in the third.
“The second half of the game, I just thought we totally dominated,” Mason said. “We didn’t give them anything, the third period especially.”
Lundqvist made 31 stops for New York in the first meeting between the two teams in St Louis since 2005.
PENGUINS 3, ISLANDERS 2
Frans Nielsen and Jeff Tambellini scored shootout goals and Joey MacDonald turned aside Pittsburgh stars Evgeni Malkin and Sidney Crosby in the tiebreaker to help lift the troubled New York Islanders.
Dan Bylsma’s first game behind the Pittsburgh Penguins bench ended like so many under former coach Michel Therrien: with a loss.
Bylsma got the call that he would replace Therrien on Sunday, just before he was set to coach his Wilkes Barre-Scranton club in an AHL game. Pittsburgh fell to 1-7-2 on the road this year.
Chris Campoli and Frans Nielsen scored for New York, which owns the NHL’s worst record (17-33-6). MacDonald stopped 35 shots before the tiebreaker.
STARS 3, BLUE JACKETS 2, SO
At Columbus, Ohio, James Neal scored the only goal in the shootout and Marty Turco had 41 saves to lead Dallas past Columbus.
Neal, six-for-nine in shootouts this season, slipped the puck past Steve Mason on the glove side. Turco, tested all night, then made a blocker save on Blue Jackets captain Rick Nash to preserve the win.
Dallas’ Brad Richards scored 27 seconds into the game, before most of the crowd of 15,006 had settled in. Loui Eriksson collected his 27th to tie it in the second period.
R.J. Umberger had both Blue Jackets goals in a span of 1:29 in the second period — the fastest goals ever by a Columbus player.
OILERS 3, COYOTES 1
At Glendale, Arizona, Sheldon Souray scored a power-play goal with 14:27 remaining to lift Edmonton past struggling Phoenix.
Ales Hemsky had a goal and assist and Shawn Horcoff added an empty-netter with 23.5 seconds left for the Oilers, who beat Phoenix for the seventh straight time. Edmonton also moved past Columbus and Anaheim into seventh place in the Western Conference.
SENATORS 2, PREDATORS 0
At Nashville, Tennessee, Nick Foligno and Dany Heatley scored first-period goals and Alex Auld made 24 saves to lead Ottawa past Nashville for its season-high fifth straight victory.
The shutout was the first of the season for Auld and the sixth of his career. After losing nine consecutive decisions, Auld has won two in a row.
THRASHERS 7, KINGS 6, SO
At Los Angeles, Ilya Kovalchuk had two goals and an assist, rookie defenseman Zach Bogosian had three assists and Erik Christensen scored in the fourth round of the shootout as Atlanta edged Los Angeles.
Anze Kopitar scored his second goal of the game for the Kings with 5 seconds left in the third period to force overtime.
It was the second straight game that Los Angeles lost in a shootout after tying the score in the final minute of regulation.
On Saturday, Dustin Brown tied the game with 26 seconds left against Edmonton before the Kings lost 3-2.
Bryan Little, Todd White, Marty Reasoner and Colin Stuart also scored for the Thrashers.
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