Defenseman Kevin Shattenkirk made the most of his 26th birthday, and his father Pat was on hand to see his son step up in a crucial moment for the St. Louis Blues. Shattenkirk scored in the fourth round of the shootout to give the Blues a 5-4 victory against the Nashville Predators at Scottrade Center on Thursday. Shattenkirk is 6-for-14 in career shootouts with five deciding goals. Shattenkirk beat Nashville goalie Carter Hutton with a forehand, and Brian Elliott stopped James Neal to give the Blues their eighth win in nine games (8-0-1). St. Louis (30-13-4) ended a seven-game homestand 6-0-1. Jaden Schwartz, T.J. Oshie, Steve Ott and Ryan Reaves scored in the second period for the Blues, who trailed 2-0 and moved within four points of first-place Nashville (31-10-6) in the Central Division. Oshie scored in the shootout. Elliott made 33 saves for the Blues, who play at the Carolina Hurricanes on Friday. He allowed a Roman Josi shootout goal and got a bit of a break on Neal, who seemed to lose the puck before Elliott stopped it to end the game. St. Louis lost left wing Patrik Berglund to an upper-body injury late in the second period, and center Jori Lehtera early in the third period to an upper-body injury. Mike Fisher scored twice and had an assist, Neal and Filip Forsberg scored, and Josi had two assists for Nashville. Hutton made 31 saves for the Predators, who play at the Colorado Avalanche on Friday. Neal beat Elliott from the slot off a pass from Fisher with 2:38 remaining in the third period to tie it 4-4. The Predators outshot the Blues 15-6 in the third period. The Blues took the lead with three goals in a 4:40 span of the second period, including two in 26 seconds. Schwartz made it 2-1 when he followed Vladimir Tarasenko's shot at 8:22. Oshie tied it 2-2 when he followed Paul Stastny's shot at 12:36, then Ott's second goal with the Blues, off another rebound, gave the Blues a 3-2 lead at 13:02. Fisher's second of the game, a shorthanded goal, after a Schwartz turnover and when Elliott gave up a rebound of Josi's shot from the left point, tied the game 3-3 at 15:32. Reaves' slap shot from the right circle, after he stripped Predators defenseman Seth Jones in the neutral zone, beat Hutton with 1:45 remaining and gave the Blues a 4-3 lead. Fisher gave the Predators a 1-0 lead, his 500th point in the NHL, on the strangest of goals. He tipped Josi's point shot, and the puck caromed off the glass behind Elliott, came back over the goal and went in off the goalie at 12:49 of the first period. The play was reviewed to determine that it did not hit the protective netting above the glass. Blues goaltender Martin Brodeur, who officially announced his retirement earlier Thursday, took part in a ceremonial faceoff before the game.
Blues Quotes
Kevin Shattenkirk: "You kind of go into it and think to yourself, 'There's no way you can get gypped on your birthday. It was a nice little present and happy we had the fathers here. My dad was here to see it too. Luckily I get to go when there's an opportunity to go ahead by a goal and not have to tie it up. I think that's mentally a huge break when you have that opportunity. It's nice when you get to go later after the other guys go so you can see what their goalie's doing a little bit."Brian Elliott: "[Neal's] usually a shooter. I don't think it settled down for him at the right time. [It] just kind of floated in on me. One point gained on them, but we definitely wanted the two-point game. That's why it's tough gaining ground. It looked like we ran out of gas in the third there. Obviously they kept ragging it, ragging it, ragging it until they got that shot to score the fourth goal. We held in there."
Ken Hitchcock: "That third period, they showed they had one more game under their belt [Nashville playing Tuesday after the All-Star break]. That showed up. We looked like we had missed eight or nine days. That showed up also. We were much better than they were in the first [period] and they were much better than we were in the third, and the second was probably from a play standpoint a draw. The first period we played was terrific. We had eight scoring chances or seven scoring chances to one or two or whatever. Couldn't get ourselves any gap in it, couldn't finish there."
T.J. Oshie: "I thought we played hard. They're a great team and they made a pretty strong push at the end there. Unfortunately, they got a point out of us, but when a team puts that much pressure on you, one's bound to go in. I thought we recovered really well, I thought we did well in OT."
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