Blues recover to defeat Golden Knights in shootout 

LAS VEGAS -- The St. Louis Blues recovered after blowing a two-goal lead late in the third period to defeat the Vegas Golden Knights 5-4 in a shootout at T-Mobile Arena on Monday.

Jake Neighbours and Brayden Schenn scored in the shootout for St. Louis after Jack Eichel and Pavel Dorofeyev scored with Vegas' net empty to force overtime.

“It should give us a lot of confidence that when we play the right way and our habits and details are really good, and combine that with really good effort and execution, we can play with elite teams in the League,” Blues coach Jim Montgomery said.

Neighbours, Schenn, Nathan Walker and Cam Fowler scored for the Blues (23-21-4), who lost 4-2 to the Utah Hockey Club on Saturday but have won three of four. Jordan Binnington made 28 saves.

“After a game that we weren't proud of in Utah, we came out with a good start,” Neighbours said. “Honestly, I thought we played well in the third, and then, you know, they just made two nice shots; that sometimes happens. The resilient group finds a way to get two [points].”

Eichel and Dorofeyev each had a goal and an assist, and Shea Theodore had four assists for the Golden Knights (29-14-4), who have lost four in a row. Adin Hill made 24 saves.

“Nobody's panicking, I'll say that. We're not in the room tearing the walls down,” Vegas coach Bruce Cassidy said. “It's my job to drag it into the fight certain parts of the year, right? Like right now, it's a little bit of the dog [days of] January. … This is a month we've got to push through. We've built ourselves a cushion, so psychologically, maybe that is also going on, where some of these teams now are playing catch-up. Their urgency level is higher than ours right now.

“We're addressing that, but it's not a magic switch. You slowly come out of it.”

Schenn gave St. Louis a 1-0 lead at 8:25 of the first period, roofing a wrist shot from above the left circle on a 3-on-1 rush.

Tomas Hertl tied it 1-1 at 14:09 with a power-play goal, stuffing in a rebound in the crease off Dorofeyev’s shot.

Walker responded to give the Blues a 2-1 lead when he finished a rebound below the left circle at 19:43.

Neighbours pushed it to 3-1 at 6:31 of the second period with a wrist shot above Hill’s right shoulder from the left circle.

“[Robert Thomas] did a great job protecting the puck. Kind of sucked in almost three guys to him and I just tried to get over there and support him,” Neighbours said. “He made a great play, and I just tried to get down and put a good shot on that.”

Brett Howden cut the lead to 3-2 at 7:25, collecting the rebound of Theodore’s shot and scoring with a turnaround wrist shot from the slot.

Fowler extended it to 4-2 at 19:29 with a slap shot from the point on the power play.

“People are attacking the net,” Montgomery said. “They're attacking seams and we're converging at the net well. When it goes up top, I think [Justin] Faulk and Fowler are doing a really good job of bombing it.”

Eichel cut it to 4-3 at 16:50 of the third period with a one-timer from the left circle, and Dorofeyev tied the game 4-4 at 19:30 with a one-timer from the right circle.

“It was good resiliency, good push to get us a point at least,” Howden said. “Obviously, there's things that we want to clean up to play a better game. We don't want to be giving up four goals a night, that's for sure. I mean, you can say it's a bit of a step in getting the confidence up [to come back late].”

NOTES: Binnington earned his 17th career shootout win and passed Brian Elliott for the most in Blues history. … Hertl extended his point streak to six games (five goals, five assists), and Theodore pushed his to five games (one goal, nine assists). … Theodore had four assists in a game for the first time in his NHL career and tied his career high with 38 this season (78 games in 2021-22).