Backes wins it, Blues outlast Stars 3-2 in 9-round shootout

Stars 1, Blues 0. Dallas outshot St. Louis 38-22 in the game. The two teams will play the second half of the home-and-home series on Sunday night in Dallas.

The victory avenged Dallas’ 3-2 shootout loss to the Blues in St. Louis on Saturday night.

“It’s not my forte but when called upon hopefully I can contribute and tonight was one of those nights”, said Backes, unsuccessful in his previous four shootout attempts. “Yeah, sometimes you get those, sometimes you don’t”, Elliott said. They were able to frustrate star players like Max Pacioretty and P.K. Subban, which led to such a lopsided final score.

And to take out his anger, Benn set up the birthday boy, Patrick Sharp for the first goal of the game. with just 1:57 left in the period.

“We played very well, played very well from start to finish”, St. Louis coach Ken Hitchcock said. But if the first power play was bad the second one was much, much worse. Goalies make a difference.

Stars coach Lindy Ruff is hoping there will be a different outcome when the two teams play again on Sunday night, this time in Dallas. The Blues matched a season high for shots in a period with 18 – at one point it was 11-0 in shots – but got only one of them in the net. “So we got a point and now we move on tomorrow at home where we’ve been good”.

In addition to his usual offensive work, made life hard on Vladimir Tarasenko, the Blues’ leading goal scorer.

The Lightning had scored five goals or more just twice in their first 31 games but have now done it three times in their last five games, building momentum in the middle of a six-game homestand.

The third period was scoreless until Chimera outskated Montreal defenseman Alexei Emelin for a loose puck and then lifted a shot past goalie Mike Condon for his 10th goal of the season. Jamie Benn also assisted, giving him 47 points in 36 games. Elliott headed to the bench with 2:13 remaining, but St. Louis was unable to find a goal, even with the extra attacker. Ten minutes later, Elliott made a glove save on Ales Hemsky’s backhand from just to the right of the net. Benn and Patrick Sharp each had a power-play goal and an assist.

Stars: With 1:32 remaining, Cody Eakin flipped the puck the length of the ice for an unassisted open-net goal. Fabbri was denied by Niemi, bringing up Colton Sceviour for Dallas, but he couldn’t get the puck past Allen.

Pittsburgh’s five-goal outburst Monday included two scores each by Evgeni Malkin and Phil Kessel. “I heard the horn go and I knew the puck was still sitting right there. I watched (right wing Troy) Brouwer go and I had a few things in mind and everything I had in mind wasn’t there when I went down and ended up default five hole and it found a hole”. He’s playing unbelievable for us.

Up next for the Blues was Jori Lehtera, who beat Niemi and brought up Jason Spezza, who scored to bring up a sixth shooter for each team.

The game was played with only one referee, Rob Martell, because Brad Meier had travel issues that kept him from reaching rain-soaked Dallas. Kris Letang had a pair of assists after missing the past six games with an upper-body injury.

NOTES: C Kyle Brodziak missed his fourth consecutive game for the Blues because of a skate cut on his leg. He was replaced in the lineup by LW Jordan Caron, who was recalled from Chicago of the AHL on Friday….

Sergeev, 19, was an undrafted free agent who signed with the Blues in 2014.