Nurse scores in OT, Sharks defeat Blues

ST. LOUIS -- Darnell Nurse scored at 1:03 of overtime, and the San Jose Sharks defeated the St. Louis Blues 3-2 at Enterprise Center on Thursday.

Nurse took a backdoor pass from Ivar Stenberg and beat Joel Hofer at the nearside left post for his first goal with San Jose since being traded to the Sharks from the Edmonton Oilers on July 1.

“It felt amazing,” Nurse said. “It was nice to battle back. It took us a little bit in the first, our team was resilient and then got to our game. The third period we started establishing ourselves. It’s fun to win and fun to add into that.

“I was trying to yell off the bench, but (Stenberg) has eyes. He sees the whole game. I was able to make a nice move there and pull up and just got the puck on the middle of my stick and just shot to the middle of the net there.”

Tyler Toffoli had a goal and an assist, and Collin Graf scored for the Sharks (3-1-0), who played without captain Macklin Celebrini (lower-body injury) for the second straight game following a 5-0 loss at the Dallas Stars on Monday. Alex Nedeljkovic made 24 saves in his first start this season.

All three of San Jose's victories have come in overtime.

“Not a great first, got better as the game went on,” San Jose coach Ryan Warsofsky said. “’Woody’ (Kiefer Sherwood) makes a heck of a play there with a minute left there to block that shot (on Robert Thomas in the slot with a wide-open net) to get us a point and then ‘Steny’ makes a heck of a play there to (Nurse) there to finish it.”

Connor McMichael and Dillon Dube scored in the home opener for the Blues (1-2-1), who have lost three straight after opening the season with a 4-0 win against the Dallas Stars. Hofer made 24 saves.

“I think we were the better team for most of the game,” McMichael said. “We kind of just got up by one and kept falling asleep and let them back into the game and that’s the type of stuff that hurts you in this league. We’ve got to tighten that up.”

McMichael’s second goal in as many games put St. Louis ahead 1-0 at 3:52 of the first period off a neutral zone breakout and give-and-go with Mason McTavish before McMichael finished a backdoor tap-in at the left post.

Toffoli tied it 1-1 at 8:48 of the second period, scoring off his own rebound. The forward stuffed his second shot at the near post getting checked by Colton Parayko seconds after a Sharks power play ended.

“I thought ‘Toff’ was really good tonight,” Warsofsky said. “That line got better as the game went along as well (with Michael Misa and Igor Chernyshov). We talked about putting more pucks to the net and Toff did a good job there.”

Dube's short-handed goal, his first goal in the NHL since Nov. 16, 2023, put the Blues ahead 2-1 at 1:39 of the third period. He kept the puck on a 2-on-1 and beat Nedeljkovic high into the right-hand corner.

Graf tied it 2-2 at 6:05 after Sam Dickinson's centering effort caromed off Blues defenseman Adam Jiricek into the slot and quick shot into the top left-hand corner.

“I thought we were in complete control of the game, and we need to be comfortable winning 2-1,” Blues coach Jim Montgomery said. “It’s like we want to try and win 3-, 4-1. It’s mistakes we made that allowed them to score that second goal and then end up in overtime and anything can happen in 3-on-3 hockey. Unfortunately, we were on the wrong end of it.”

NOTES: The Sharks are 4-10-1 in games when Celebrini doesn’t play; he is considered day to day. … Parayko played in his 804th game with the Blues, passing Barret Jackman for second on the all-time franchise list for games played, trailing only Bernie Federko (927).