Broberg scores go-ahead goal in third, lifts Blues past Jets

ST. LOUIS – Philip Broberg scored the go-ahead power-play goal in the third period, and the St. Louis Blues opened a five-game homestand with a 2-1 win against the Winnipeg Jets at Enterprise Center on Tuesday.

Broberg's one-timer from the high slot at 8:47 off a pass from Robert Thomas came on the Blues' fifth power play of the game.

“Good pass and I just shot it,” Broberg said. “It was good, good to see it go in.

“You try to read where the PKers are and where it’s open space and I think ‘Tommer’ takes a lot of attention to him there, so they drive to him, good pass and I just tried to hit the net there.”

Blues coach Jim Montgomery said of Broberg, “I think he’s gone from neutral to overdrive to Lamborghini style here in the last two games if you’re comparing him to a race car. It’s just so fun to watch because he has so much intensity within him and when you watch him skate, he reminds me of Adrian Peterson. He ran like he was mad. This guy skates sometimes like he’s mad. ‘I’m going to take it right through your net,’ and it’s inspiring, I think.”

Broberg also had an assist, and Jimmy Snuggerud scored for a second straight game for the Blues (4-4-1), who had lost their past two games. Joel Hofer made 32 saves.

Cole Perfetti scored for the Jets (4-3-2), who have lost three straight (0-2-1). Stuart Skinner made 26 saves.

“It was kind of a funny game in the sense that we were real good for the first 10 of the first period, they were better for the second part of that,” Winnipeg coach Scott Arniel said. “Second period, four penalties, whatever, it just kind of took the flow away, you kind of lose your bench a little bit. I thought in the third we got back to doing what we had to do. 

“Another penalty, but at the end of the day, it was a different kind of game in the sense of the flow to it, it wasn’t great. When we did a good job getting through the neutral zone and into the offensive zone, I thought we did a real good job on our attacks, trying to get there. Hofer obviously made some big stops. Certainly we need to find a way to keep that game tied or get it tied back up again.”

Snuggerud put the Blues ahead 1-0 at 12:30 of the first period when Broberg found Dylan Holloway with a seam pass, and Holloway’s centering feed caromed off Snuggerud’s skate in the low slot.

Perfetti tied it 1-1 32 seconds into the third period, one second after a Winnipeg power play expired. Perfetti moved up into the slot from below the goal line to receive a pass from Gabriel Vilardi and score under Hofer’s left pad with a backhand.

“It's obviously nice (to score),” Perfetti said. “It feels good. You want to help the team in any way possible, and if that's on the score sheet, that's one way to do it. But it's also there's other aspects of the game that I'm focusing on. It's definitely nice to get one there and get us going on the road and get us back in the game, but yeah, it would have been a lot better to come through (with) two points.”

Hofer made four saves late in the game after the Jets pulled Skinner for the extra skater to get his fourth win against his hometown team.

“Any game in our division, especially hometown team, it obviously adds a little bit more,” Hofer said. “It’s obviously fun.

"That was in the pre-scout that they go to the net hard and they're hungry around there. It was obviously a key point, but I thought our 'D' did a good job boxing out and keeping them to the outside, and if there was a rebound, they didn't get much, so it was good."

NOTES: Broberg finished with a game-high six shots on goal and played 23:41. ... Thomas has four points (two goals, two assists) the past four games and 14 points (five goals, nine assists) the past 11 games against Winnipeg. … Holloway has seven points (one goal, six assists) in a five-game point streak. … Hofer and Skinner were teammates with Swift Current of the Western Hockey League in 2017-18.