Neighbours, Blues edge Islanders in OT

ST. LOUIS -- Jake Neighbours scored at 2:04 of overtime to give the St. Louis Blues a 1-0 win against the New York Islanders at Enterprise Center on Thursday.

Neighbours was driving the net on a 3-on-1 rush and redirected a saucer pass from Philip Broberg inside the left post past Ilya Sorokin.

"Just a great read by 'Hof,'" Neighbours said of goalie Joel Hofer. "He's so good at playing the puck, and obviously he saw we had numbers up the ice and made a great play to 'Broby.' I just tried to drive through that defenseman. I think [Brandon Saad] was off my back side there, and 'Broby' made a great read and laid one in there for me."

Hofer started the play with the puck on his stick after he received it back from Pavel Buchnevich as the Blues were making a change. Hofer then saw a chance to get the puck up ice quickly and sent a pass off the boards to Broberg.

"I just saw their guy was kind of poaching in a little bit and I saw 'Broby' kind of making his way to the [offensive zone]," Hofer said. "Just trying to bypass the forward was all I was trying to do."

Sorokin bit on what he thought was going to be Neighbours moving the puck to his backhand before shooting.

"Usually in this moment, the player has the puck and starts to make a move like a breakaway," Sorokin said. "But he made a smart move just to have a chipped puck. It's a good play for him."

Hofer made 34 saves for his second NHL shutout for St. Louis (3-2-0), which had lost two straight.

"We knew from the start they weren't going to give up much," Blues defenseman Ryan Suter said. "We knew that we had to defend hard. They've got some good players. We stuck with it and outlasted them."

Sorokin made 29 saves for New York (1-1-2), which was shut out twice during its three-game road trip (also a 3-0 loss to the Dallas Stars on Oct. 12).

"It felt like it was a very tight game," Islanders forward Jean-Gabriel Pageau said. "Both teams had good sticks and were playing hard. Hard to get to the net and the goalies were making the saves. I think everyone had that feeling from the start that it was a one-goal game."

Each team hit the post in the second period, with Bo Horvat doing so for the Islanders at 3:37 and again at 3:48. Brayden Schenn did it for the Blues at 11:59.

"I thought we competed well," Islanders coach Patrick Roy said. "We had our chances, especially in the third period. A couple ones, I just couldn't believe they didn't (go) in. We didn't try to force the game. ... Overall, I thought we played very well defensively. And when we did not, Ilya made those key saves for us. Offensively, we had our chances."

Blues coach Drew Bannister commended his team for showing patience.

"I'm proud of our group. I thought we showed a lot of maturity," Bannister said. "That's a game where you can get frustrated in, and our guys just stuck with it. They played the way the game came to them. They didn't deviate from what we had to do to have success. As much as it was a great road game for the Islanders, I thought we stayed focused, we stayed on task and they got rewarded at the end."

NOTES: Broberg set a Blues record for a defenseman by getting a point in each of his first five games with the team (one goal, four assists). ... The Islanders were 0-for-2 on the power play. The Blues were 0-for-1.