ST. LOUIS (AP) — Bryan Rust scored the deciding goal in a shootout and goalie Tristan Jarry picked up his 30th victory in the Pittsburgh Penguins’ 3-2 win over the St. Louis Blues on Thursday night.
The fourth shooter for the Penguins, Rust snapped a wrist shot from the slot past goalie Ville Husso.
Rust is 3 for 3 this season in shootouts and 5 for 5 in his career.
“I have a similar thought process pretty much every time I go out there,” Rust said. “There’s a few things I look for. I pick my spot and score.”
Jarry improved to 30-12-6, thwarting all four St. Louis shooters in the tiebreaker. He made 23 saves in regulation and overtime.
“It’s cool. It’s something you don’t really think about when it happens it’s pretty cool it happens,” Jarry said. “It’s like a little milestone but I think there’s still a lot of work to do and games to be played. So I hope to have a lot more.”
Mike Matheson and Chad Ruhwedel scored in regulation for Pittsburgh.
Ivan Barbashev and David Perron scored for St. Louis, and Husso made 43 saves.
Perron’s goal in the second period got the Blues back in the game that Pittsburgh was dominating.
“I kind of saw an opening and was able to come across the crease,” Perron said. “When you do that a lot of times if you just elevate over a pad you have a really good chance to score. It worked. That was a big goal for us at the time, too. Just gave us a little bit of energy.”
The Blues tied it at 2 in the third period when Barbashev scored his 19th goal at 1:49. Barbasev poked in the rebound of Brandon Saad wraparound attempt.
Blues coach Craig Berube was pleased his team rebounded from being down 2-0.
“I think we just had more urgency,” Berube said. “That’s what I saw. We were more physical, (It) looked like we were hungrier on pucks.”
The Penguins kept the pressure on after the Blues tied the game, Pittsburgh coach Mike Sullivan said.
“I thought tonight we were the better team for the most part tonight,” Sullivan said. “Give St. Louis credit. They pushed back in the end of the second and in the third. The most encouraging part was when they tied it up, it didn’t affect us. We got right back to work.”
NOTES: The Penguins have an NHL-high 44 road points at 20-7-4. … Blues LW Pavel Buchnevich returned to the lineup. Buchnevich, who took a high hit from Ottawa forward Austin Watson late in a March 8 game, has practiced with the team in each of the last two days and is back after missing three games with an upper-body injury. … RW Kasperi Kapanen appeared in game No. 100 with Pittsburgh.
UP NEXT
Penguins: At Arizona on Saturday.
Blues: At Columbus on Saturday.
