Blues, Blackhawks Start NHL Second Half With Losses

By ESPN

Jacob Trouba's bad-bounce goal was a big break for the Winnipeg Jets.

Trouba scored in the third on an unusual play, and the Jets beat the St. Louis Blues 5-3 on Tuesday night.

Mark Scheifele and Blake Wheeler each had a goal and two assists as Winnipeg improved to 12-4-1 within the Central Division and 3-0 against St. Louis. Patrik Laine and Nikolaj Ehlers also scored, and Ondrej Pavelec made 24 saves.

"It was a first game back after the All-Star Game with some strange defensive zone coverage as probably for both teams, but we did a pretty good job of letting Pavs see the puck," Jets coach Paul Maurice said. "He tracked those seams really well and needed to on a couple of them and cleared them in front of the net pretty well too."

Alexander Steen, Vladimir Tarasenko and Alex Pietrangelo scored for the Blues, who lost their fourth straight on home ice. Jake Allen made 19 saves.

Winnipeg opened a 4-2 lead on Trouba's fourth of the season 3:33 into the third. Trouba initially fanned on the shot but the puck went off of Pietrangelo's skate and into the net.

"When you play the right way, I think the game rewards you," Scheifele said. "That's what we were doing. Trouby played awesome for us all night and he got rewarded with a fluky one and that's the way she goes."

Wheeler said the goal was pivotal.

"You don't want to go into a third up by a goal just planning to hang on," Wheeler said. "That's when you get into trouble. You want to keep getting on the puck, staying on our forecheck and if you make them spend some time on their zone, typically they are more worried about trying to tie the game than they are about their zone and we were able to get a pretty good bounce."

The ricochet on Trouba's goal was another tough break for Allen, who made his first start since being pulled after allowing four goals on 10 shots on Jan. 19. He was replaced in each of his previous three starts, allowing 10 goals on 36 shots during that span.

Allen received sarcastic cheers from the crowd of 19,483 for routine saves throughout the game.

"It wasn't the result we wanted, but for my sake it felt pretty good," Allen said. "Two lucky deflections, but it doesn't matter anymore. We've got to find ways to win. I felt solid out there."

Steen put St. Louis in front just 3:37 into the game on a shot from the point. It was the first time St. Louis scored the opening goal on home ice since Dec. 15.

Scheifele tied it with 30 seconds left in the first on a give-and-go with Wheeler, and Laine gave the Jets a 2-1 lead 22 seconds into the second period. Laine is on a seven-game point streak, and his 41 points leads all NHL rookies.

"If we get down one, down two, we keep playing our same game," Scheifele said. "We don't try to open it up, we don't try to do anything that's not in our system."

After Ehlers scored just seven seconds into Winnipeg's first power play, Tarasenko responded for the Blues with 52 seconds remaining in the second.

"We make mistakes and we're paying for them right now," Blues coach Ken Hitchcock said. "On three of their goals we had the puck."

Sharks 3, Blackhawks 1

Tomas Hertl's long wait between goals ended and Patrick Marleau closed in on a major milestone for the San Jose Sharks.

Hertl's first goal in more than three months broke a tie with 2:03 remaining in regulation after Marleau scored his 499th career goal, helping the Sharks win for the seventh time in eight games, 3-1 over the Chicago Blackhawks on Tuesday night.

After missing 32 games with a knee injury, Hertl got his first goal since Oct. 27 in his second game back in the lineup when he knocked in the rebound of Brent Burns' shot to give San Jose the win in the first game back from the All-Star break.

"I should have buried a couple goals before," Hertl said. "But I'm happy I scored because it was a long time, like three months. It was a big celly for me."

Joe Pavelski added an empty-netter to cap a night that nearly included a milestone for Marleau. He had an apparent goal wiped off by an offside call on replay before scoring No. 499 in the second period. That gave Marleau six goals in the past four games as he surges toward becoming the 45th player to reach 500.

"It always feels good when you score and win, so it's good," Marleau said. "Hopefully I won't have too long."

Martin Jones made 24 saves as the Sharks matched last season's home win total of 18 games.

Dennis Rasmussen scored and Corey Crawford made 26 saves for the Blackhawks, who have lost three straight games. Chicago led going into the third period in losses to Tampa Bay and Winnipeg before the break before giving up the late tiebreaking goal to the Sharks.

"We had two minutes to go there, we just wanted to make sure we could get it to overtime and look for the extra point," coach Joel Quenneville said. "Three games in a row we've given up some points. It's a tough pill to swallow."

After a slow start to the game with few chances for the first 30 minutes, the action picked up in the last half of the second period. It started when Marleau appeared to score when he took the rebound of Logan Couture's missed shot off the back boards and tucked it in for a goal. But the Blackhawks challenged the play, believing Mikkel Boedker was offside on the entry, and replay wiped the goal off the board.

Just a few minutes later with Artem Anisimov in the box for holding, Marleau did get No. 499 when he beat Crawford with a shot from the circle for his 18th goal of the season.

"Patty's been excellent," coach Peter DeBoer said. "Best hockey I've seen him play since I've been here. He's just got to keep going."

The Sharks had a chance to add on to the lead, but Crawford stopped Timo Meier on a breakaway. Chicago then got the equalizer when Rasmussen beat Jones with a shot off the inside of the post from the top of the circle on a rush.

But that was all the Blackhawks would get.

"I thought it was better than the last two or three games," defenseman Duncan Keith said. "We did a lot of good things. It's just a tough way to lose in the last couple of minutes."

Tuesday, January 31 Scoreboard

New York Islanders 3,  Washington 2

Columbus 6, New York Rangers 4

Pittsburgh 4, Nashville 2

Carolina 5, Philadelphia 1

Montreal 5, Buffalo 2

New Jersey 4, Detroit 3

Boston 4, Tampa Bay 3

Florida 6, Ottawa 5

Winnipeg 5, St. Louis 3

Dallas 6, Toronto 3

Minnesota 5, Edmonton 2

Los Angeles 3, Arizona 2

Anaheim 5, Colorado 1

San Jose 3,  Chicago 1

Wednesday, February 1 Schedule (All Times Central)

Boston at Washington, 7 p.m.

Minnesota at Calgary, 9 p.m.

Colorado at Los Angeles, 9:30 p.m.