Buchnevich, Blues defeat Golden Knights in OT

LAS VEGAS -- Pavel Buchnevich scored 38 seconds into overtime to give the St. Louis Blues a 2-1 victory against the Vegas Golden Knights at T-Mobile Arena on Monday.

Buchnevich, who was left all alone in the right circle, received a return pass from Robert Thomas before beating Logan Thompson short side.

“He made a good move, got the goalie off his post, and he was able to kind of slide it in on that short side,” Thomas said. “So a big goal and a big win for us.”

Alexey Toropchenko also scored, and Jordan Binnington made 33 saves for St. Louis (13-10-1), which has won two of three.

“It's a fun atmosphere to play in. I enjoy it. You definitely feel like you better show when you play here and going against a team like that,” Binnington said. “They're a competitive group and they play the right way and play hard, so I think we did a good job stepping up tonight and getting the win.”

Jack Eichel scored, and Thompson made 25 saves for Vegas (16-5-5), which had won two in a row.

“We had a lot of good looks, some Grade As that [Binnington] made stops on. I thought we defended pretty well and didn't give up a lot,” Golden Knights coach Bruce Cassidy said. “All in all, pretty good game. Well enough to win for sure. We've seen a bit of this movie the last month with some goaltenders playing real well against us where we didn't get points, so at least we got a point in this one.”

The two teams will play the second game of a home-and-home in St. Louis on Wednesday.

“We’ll see what happens with that,” Binnington said. “They’ll be hungry to come at us, and we got to hold it down at home.”

Toropchenko gave the Blues a 1-0 lead at 19:39 of the first period when he redirected in Colton Parayko's shot from the right point.

St. Louis is 12-0-0 when it scores first this season and 1-10-1 when it allows the first goal.

“We feel real good when we score first us, that's for sure,” Blues coach Craig Berube said. “We haven't done a great job when we haven't scored first so far this year, and that's something we got to improve upon and correct. But when we have the lead, we play confident and we keep coming.”

Eichel tied it 1-1 with a power-play goal at 12:58 of the third period, roofing a wrist shot from the top of the right circle through a screen. He has eight points (three goals, five assists) during a four-game point streak.

“I liked a lot of our game. Give their goalie credit. He’s an elite goaltender and he made a lot of big saves on us,” Eichel said. “We couldn’t figure out a way to get another one by him. There were a lot of positives from or our game. We play them again in two days, so we’ll be ready for that one.”