Blues rally in third period, defeat Panthers

SUNRISE, Fla. -- The St. Louis Blues scored three goals in the third period to rally for a 3-2 win against the Florida Panthers at BB&T Center on Tuesday.

Vince Dunn broke a tie with 3:53 remaining after Colton Parayko and Ryan O'Reilly scored for St. Louis (24-22-5), which has won three in a row. Jordan Binnington made 22 saves in his fifth straight start.
"Our team has really turned it around," Dunn said. "We're finding ways now. Even when we don't get the starts we want to, we're finding ways to get back into games and most of the time we're coming back and winning them."
WATCH: [All Blues vs. Panthers highlights]
Henrik Borgstrom and Aleksander Barkov scored power-play goals for Florida (21-22-5), which won four of its previous five games. James Reimer made 31 saves.
"Even when we scored two power-play goals and were ahead 2-0, we didn't step on their throat," Panthers coach Bob Boughner said. "We had the game in our hands 2-0, and you've got to find a way to shut them down and get the two points."
Dunn scored the game-winning goal with a low wrist shot from the high slot.
"It was kind of just a puck that came loose in the middle and I jumped on it," he said. "I saw that their D stepped up, so I just tried to get a shot through and fortunately enough it went in."
Parayko made it 2-1 at 3:05 when he took a pass from Oskar Sundqvist and scored on a wraparound.

O'Reilly tied it at 11:09 when he got a loose puck out of a scrum in front of the net to make it 2-2. The goal, which was awarded after being challenged for goalie interference, extended O'Reilly's point streak to eight games.
"We're all just whacking at it trying to get a bounce, and lucky for me I put it in," O'Reilly said. "That was just kind of the way we were playing tonight; everyone just giving it what we can trying to win the battle. It was good enough tonight."
St. Louis outshot Florida 19-8 in the third period.
"I thought we had a good game," Parayko said. "It's tough; they had the two power-play goals. I thought we did well 5-on-5 and we just stuck with it the full game. Obviously being down two in the third isn't easy, and just continuing to push and push and push was huge. We did a good job in the third of sticking with it, just not letting that faze us and we continue to get things done."
Borgstrom gave Florida a 1-0 lead at 18:55 of the first period after Aaron Ekblad's wrist shot from the point was blocked in front of the net.
Barkov scored 30 seconds into the third period when he redirected a short pass from behind the net by Mike Hoffman to make it 2-0.

Hoffman hit the post on a one-timer with 1:15 left with Reimer pulled for an extra attacker.
"That was nice," Binnington said. "Sometimes you need a couple of bounces. If you work hard, hopefully the bounces go your way sometimes. We're really excited as a group about that comeback win."

They said it

"We need to definitely start off better. [We're] fortunate enough to get the win, and that's really good for us. It's a really good feeling in the room being able to come back into games. But looking forward, we need to make sure we're getting off to better starts." -- Blues defenseman Vince Dunn
"We spent too much time in our zone. In the third period, they got their momentum and just rolled over us." -- Panthers captain Aleksander Barkov

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Need to know

The Blues are 2-18-3 when trailing after two periods, with both victories coming against the Panthers. They won 4-3 in St. Louis on Dec. 11 after trailing 1-0 through two periods. … Dunn's goal was his second in two games at BB&T Center; he scored his first NHL goal here on Oct. 12, 2017, in a 5-2 loss. … Parayko led all players with five shots on goal. … The Blues outshot the Panthers 34-24, their 17th consecutive game with a shot advantage. It's the third-longest such streak in their history. … Keith Yandle extended the longest active game streak to 776 games and led all skaters with 25:22 of ice time. He's 10 games shy of tying Craig Ramsay for the fifth-longest streak in NHL history.

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What's next

Blues: At the Tampa Bay Lightning on Thursday (7:30 p.m. SUN, FS-MW, NHL.TV)
Panthers: Host the Pittsburgh Penguins on Thursday (7 p.m. ET; SNE, SNO, FS-F, ATTSN-PT, NHL.TV)