Snuggerud has 4 points, Blues score 5 straight goals to rally past Penguins

ST. LOUIS -- Jimmy Snuggerud had four points, and the St. Louis Blues scored five straight goals en route to a 7-5 come-from-behind win against the Pittsburgh Penguins at Enterprise Center on Tuesday.​

Dylan Holloway had two goals and an assist, Logan Mailloux had a goal and an assist, while Robert Thomas and Jake Neighbours each tallied two assists for the Blues (36-33-12), who have won three straight, including a 6-3 win against the Minnesota Wild on Monday. Jordan Binnington made 18 saves and had an assist.

“Our first period was very sloppy. Our puck play was close to horrendous,” St. Louis coach Jim Montgomery said. “We didn’t do a lot of favors for our goaltender. ... I grabbed Robert Thomas (at the end of the first) and I said, ‘You guys have the room.’ I said, ‘I’m not coming in. You guys know how to play the right way. Why don’t you guys discuss what we’ve got to do, anything different, to get back in this game.’ And the second period was much better for us. We outshot them 16-6, I believe, and we scored those goals. We carried that into the third, we got a couple goals and we got a little sloppy again. It seems to be the kind of games we’re getting right now.

"Everybody who’s made the playoffs is in, and those teams that haven’t are out. There’s a lot of call-ups being played for the teams that have made the playoffs, and there’s a lot of the young kids probably playing for a lot of the teams that are not in the playoffs.”

Avery Hayes scored twice, Anthony Mantha had a goal and an assist, and Kevin Hayes had two assists for the Penguins (41-25-16), who closed out the season with three straight losses. Stuart Skinner made 17 saves on 21 shots through two periods before being replaced for the third period by Arturs Silovs, who made seven saves on nine shots.

“It was something we talked about before the game,” Pittsburgh coach Dan Muse said of using two goalies. “I discussed with staff, not necessarily saying anything was set in stone, but if there was an opportunity to present itself, just to get both guys some work. That was something we were looking to do, and so just decided to (because) we started giving up more than we needed to. I felt like this dude (Skinner) got a good amount of work. ... It's just, it's a unique time in the sense that we have time between games for both guys.”

The Penguins, who will face the Philadelphia Flyers in the Eastern Conference First Round, rested several veteran players, including forwards Sidney Crosby, Evgeni Malkin, Rickard Rakell, Bryan Rust and Egor Chinakhov, as well as defensemen Kris Letang, Erik Karlsson, Samuel Girard and Parker Wotherspoon.

“I would say the last week, three games, we've kind of been focusing on the playoffs,” Mantha said. “Second place was finished in our division, and it's just how it is, and some guys just needed some maintenance. That's just how we went.”

Pittsburgh went up 3-0 in the first period, starting with a goal from Rutger McGroarty that put the Penguins on the board 1-0 at 10:14. He got a quick wrist shot off from the left face-off circle in the offensive zone after Kevin Hayes won the draw.

Avery Hayes made it 2-0 at 16:40 on a breakaway after Mailloux fumbled the puck at his offensive zone blue line, putting a wrist shot past Binnington glove side.

Mantha made it 3-0, scoring his team-leading 33rd goal of the season, at 17:23 off a turnover by Blues forward Alexey Toropchenko at the blue line. Kevin Hayes found Mantha in the left circle and he put a wrist shot to the short side.

“It goes to my teammates, coaching staff, preparation,” Mantha said. “… I don't think a lot of people would have believed it, and including myself, maybe I wouldn't have, but here we are, and we need to take an extra step, come into the playoffs and help this team as much as I can.”

Snuggerud ended the Penguins' run and made it 3-1 at 18:44, scoring from the slot off a Thomas pass.

“It’s a good feeling for sure,” Snuggerud said of tallying his 20th NHL goal in his rookie season. “It’s obviously cool as an individual, but I think from a team aspect, I’m putting aside that and just realizing that we didn’t make the playoffs. We didn’t achieve a goal that was set at the beginning of the year. It definitely stinks because you want to be competing for a Stanley Cup at the end of this week.”​

Elmer Soderblom made it 4-1 at 2:58 of the second period when he used his body to power past Blues defenseman Tyler Tucker and spun around in front before slamming a wrist shot past Binnington.

Oskar Sundqvist’s rebound goal at 4:51 made it 4-2 and kicked off the five-goal comeback effort for St. Louis. He found the open net to score on Toropchenko's rebound with Skinner out of position. Toropchenko took the initial shot on a 2-on-1 breakout after getting the stretch pass from Philip Broberg.

Mailloux’s wrist shot from the high slot made it 4-3 at 10:37, and Snuggerud’s second goal of the game came on the power play at 15:49, when he tapped in a Neighbours' cross-crease pass to tie it 4-4.

“I think we just started getting on the right side of pucks,” Montgomery said. “We started playing north. That’s the main thing. We started getting the puck into their end and protecting it.”

The Blues scored twice in 44 seconds early in the third period starting with Holloway, whose wrist shot off a pass from Snuggerud in the slot made it 5-4 at 4:11. Pavel Buchnevich pushed the Blues' lead to 6-4 at 4:55 with a top shelf wrist shot over Silovs' blocker on a breakaway thanks to a stretch pass from Jordan Kyrou.

“The slot coverage has to be better,” Muse said. “That's number one. I thought we let guys in right from the start of the game, I never really feel like we found it. Just especially as we arrived into the D-zone, I felt like we were loose. A number of chances there for them, just making plays into the slot and then letting guys behind us."

Avery Hayes cut it to 6-5 with his second goal at 12:20 when he followed up his own shot and banked the rebound in off Binnington's left skate, and Holloway capped the comeback with an empty-net goal at 18:17 for the 7-5 final.

Binnington had a chance to shoot for the empty net himself, and despite cheers from the crowd prompting him to do so, he instead opted to pass to Holloway for the goal.

“I was going to shoot it and I just heard everyone yelling at me,” Binnington said. “I wasn’t sure that they were yelling, ‘shoot,’ so now I know what it feels like. I thought I (saw a lane), and then all the commotion just kind of stopped me. I had a feeling I was going for it too after the assist. I thought assist, goal, then I have to fight just to create something to be named after. Maybe in the future.”

NOTES: Pittsburgh defenseman Jake Livanavage played 25:14 in his NHL debut after signing a two-year, entry-level contract April 10 out of the University of North Dakota. … Snuggerud’s four points is an NHL career high. He has seven points (four goals, three assists) in a three-game point streak and 11 points (four goals, seven assists) in his past six games. … Holloway has 32 points (14 goals, 18 assists) in 24 games since the Winter Olympic break.