Blues rally to gain point in Central race, fall to Sabres in shootout

BUFFALO -- Sam Reinhart scored the deciding goal in the shootout to give the Buffalo Sabres a 4-3 win against the St. Louis Blues at KeyBank Center on Sunday.

Brayden Schenn tied it 3-3 for St. Louis at 8:41 of the third period on wraparound into an open left side of the net.
The Blues (37-27-8) pulled within five points of the Nashville Predators for second place in the Central Division. They are two points ahead of the Dallas Stars, who hold the first wild card into the Stanley Cup Playoffs from the Western Conference.
WATCH: [All Blues vs. Sabres highlights]
Johan Larsson, Evan Rodrigues and Conor Sheary scored for the Sabres (31-32-9), who ended a seven-game losing streak. They are 13 points behind the Columbus Blue Jackets for the second wild card into the playoffs from the Eastern Conference.
"I just liked the way we played after a back-to-back," Buffalo coach Phil Housley said. "In [a 4-2 loss at the Carolina Hurricanes on Saturday], I just thought our game was in a pretty good spot. We didn't get the result and we haven't gotten the result in the last two weeks. I'm happy for our guys. They just continue to battle, fight, and they found a way to win tonight."

Carter Hutton made 30 saves for Buffalo.
Pat Maroon and David Perron scored for St. Louis, which is 1-2-2 in its past five games after winning 15 of its previous 19. Jake Allen made 31 saves.
"Not doing the right things, not taking care of the puck, maybe thinking it would be an easier game than it is," Schenn said. "There's a lot of good teams in this league, and you can't take any team lightly. It's nice to get a point out of that, but if we play the right way, we should be able to beat this team at this time of year."
Larsson scored to put the Sabres up 1-0 at 6:42 of the first period after Zach Bogosian sent a cross-ice pass to him coming down the left side.
Maroon tied it 1-1 at 9:12 when he circled around the net and into the slot untouched. The goal was his 200th NHL point.
Rodrigues showed patience on a 2-on-1, cutting to the inner edge of the left circle before shooting far side on Allen to make it 2-1 at 14:48.
"I thought we had a bit of a 2-on-1, but [Sheary] got stuck holding the line so when the [defenseman] kind of slid over, I didn't want to just throw one in him," Rodrigues said. "I just kind of out-waited him, out-waited him, and then just tried to throw it on net, create something, try to score, and it went in."
Sheary made it to 3-1 at 7:46 of the second period on another 2-on-1 for Buffalo, taking a pass from Alex Nylander before shooting top corner, glove side.
Perron extended his personal point streak to 15 games when he scored to pull St. Louis within one at 12:15. After Buffalo defenseman Rasmus Ristolainen's stick broke, Colton Parayko pushed the puck up to Perron coming out of the penalty box, and the forward took advantage of a moving screen in front to make it 3-2 with a shot from the top of the right circle.
"It was one of those games. It wasn't very clean all game," Blues coach Craig Berube said. "It was a tough grind out there. We didn't execute very well. Give them credit, they played hard. We just didn't execute very well and our puck play wasn't very good, we turned a lot of pucks over and they had the puck more than us."

They said it

"If we play our way for 60 minutes, play the right way, grind teams down like we do, we're not fun to play against. When we don't do it for 60 minutes, we give teams a better chance to beat us." -- Blues forward Brayden Schenn

"He's gotten his step now. He's moving with the puck and he makes plays. Really nice pass to Sheary there. He just seems to get more confidence as the games go on here, and it's good to see it with him contributing." -- Sabres coach Phil Housley on forward Alex Nylander, who had two assists for his first multipoint game in the NHL

Need to know

Rasmus Dahlin had an assist, giving him 38 points on the season and tying him with Bobby Orr for second-most points by an 18-year-old defenseman in NHL history, trailing Housley (57). … The Sabres defeated the Blues for the first time since Feb. 18, 2017 (0-2-1). … The Blues are 12-1-1 in their past 14 games in Buffalo.

What's next

Blues: Host the Edmonton Oilers on Tuesday (8 p.m. ET, SN1, SNE, SNO, SNP, FS-MW, NHL.TV)
Sabres:Host the Toronto Maple Leafs on Wednesday (7 p.m. ET, MSG-B, SN, TVAS, NHL.TV)