Andy McDonald scored 3:19 into overtime to give the St. Louis Blues a 4-3 win over the Montreal Canadiens on Wednesday night.
The loss gives the Canadiens a single point, but leaves one on the table, as the battle for an Eastern Conference playoff berth continued.
The Blues jumped to an early lead, on the power play, when David Perron deflected a point shot in front of Carey Price at 2:57.
Veteran Paul Kariya put St. Louis up by two, at 3:35, cashing in on a rebound that Price couldn’t handle, and banking it off his pads.
Feeling the pressure of the Montreal fans early, the Canadiens netminder then took things into his own hands.
Price was flattened while playing the puck, by Can Janssen, and with no Georges Laraque playing, peeled off teammate Roman Hamrlik to get at the Blues’ enforcer.
Price’s frustrations put him back in the crowd’s favour. It also got the attention of Blues’ goalie Ty Conklin, who crossed the red line to confront his counterpart and drew a minor penalty.
The incident motivated the Canadiens briefly, as Benoit Pouliot scored on the ensuing power play to put them within one.
The momentum died quickly, when Alex Steen took advantage of a poor back check by Scott Gomez and put a rebound into a wide open net at 19:47.
Price didn’t let the two goal deficit, or the lack of effort in front from his team, phase him through the second period, coming up big on the Blues scoring opportunities.
St. Louis had an opportunity to break the game open, with a 1:16 two-man advantage, late in the the period, but the Canadiens and their goalie shut them down.
Montreal’s momentum from the end of the second period carried into the third, putting pressure on Conklin and keeping the Blues to just one shot through the first 10 minutes.
The Canadiens got within one when a St. Louis turnover found the stick of Gomez, who set up Pouliot for his second goal of the night at 9:11.
The Canadiens persevered and with Price pulled, a point shot from Jaroslav Spacek deflected off the stick of Gomez, forcing overtime with just 33 seconds to go.
In overtime, Conklin continued to work his magic, denying the Canadiens Andrei Markov point blank.
Kariya then took a Canadiens turnover and fed McDonald, who fired a laser over Price’s blocker for the win.
St. Louis 5-3-1 under new coach Davis Payne, who took over when Andy Murray was fired on Jan. 2.
The Canadiens stay at .500 (23-23-5) for 11th in the conference, and head to New Jersey for a Friday encounter with Martin Brodeur and the Devils.
Three Stars: 1. T.J. Oshie 2. David Perron 3. Benoit Pouliot
Goalies: Mtl – Price (L) 4 GA 28 SA StL – Conklin (W) 3 GA 38 SA
Where’s Carey?: CJAD reports that Carey Price was not available to the media post-game.
Photos: Montreal Gazette, Canadian Press, canadiens.com
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