After slipping and falling down right before he scored the game-winning goal against the Blues, Bobby Ryan called it a planned play. Ryan was joking, but as it turned out, falling down helped him get in position to score his second goal of the game 2:33 into overtime to give the Senators a 3-2 victory against the Blues at Scottrade Center. Ryan, who scored his 200th NHL goal in the third period and had an assist for a three-point night, beat Brian Elliott with a backhand shot for the game-winner after taking a pass from Mark Stone off a give-and-go. But before that, he was retrieving the puck in the Blues' zone, slipped as he was going to the side boards but got it back after St. Louis native Chris Wideman got to the puck ahead of Alex Pietrangelo. Wideman poked it to Ryan for a quick 2-on-1.
Ottawa, who broke a three-game losing streak, also got a goal from Mike Hoffman and 36 saves by Andrew Hammond. The Senators, who lost 3-0 at the Chicago Blackhawks on Sunday, are 2-5-0 in the second of back-to-back games.
Troy Brouwer and Kevin Shattenkirk scored for St. Louis, who have lost four of five. The Blues got 29 saves from Elliott, who was drafted in the ninth round of the 2003 NHL Draft by the Senators. Alexander Steen had two assists.
The Blues are 3-0-4 against the Senators since their last regulation loss on Jan. 21, 2010, with Elliott in goal for Ottawa, but they're lamenting losing a third straight (0-2-1). This time, it was the failure to put away a team playing on back-to-back nights.
The Blues, who led 2-1 going into the third period, have been outscored 6-0 in the past three third periods. Ottawa trailed 2-0 before rallying to tie the game with one goal late in the second and another early in the third. Ottawa ended their goal drought at 174:24, dating to Dec. 29, when Hoffman scored a power-play goal with 1:14 remaining in the second to cut the Blues' lead to 2-1. He took Ryan's pass in the left circle and beat Elliott high inside the near post for his 19th of the season.
Ryan tied the game with Ottawa's second power-play goal, this one with Jay Bouwmeester serving a tripping penalty. Kyle Turris won a faceoff and Ryan was able to take a long-range wrist shot through a screen by Stone that beat Elliott high 5:01 into the third. Ryan has 17 goals and 30 points in 23 games against St. Louis.
Brouwer opened the scoring 14:16 into the game with his seventh goal of the season and first in 10 games; it came after Elliott made a save following a Colton Parayko turnover. The Blues went 152:21 between 5-on-5 goals, the last one was scored by Shattenkirk on Dec. 30. The drought was 162:12 between 5-on-5 goals scored by a forward.
Shattenkirk's power-play goal 7:42 into the second gave the Blues a 2-0 lead. With David Backes providing a screen, Shattenkirk's slap shot from the blue line rattled off both posts went into the net for his eighth of the season.
The Senators lost center Mika Zibanejad in the first period after he took an inadvertent stick to the face behind Ottawa net from Blues center Jori Lehtera.
Blues Quotes
Alex Pietrangelo: "Especially tonight, playing a team that played last night, we have to find a way to bury them. We took our foot off the gas. It's unacceptable on our part. You've got a team 2-1 in the third period that played last night; we're fresh, we have to find a way to finish that. We have to put a foot down and bury them and not let them get back into it."Ken Hitchcock: [At his press conference, Hitchcock asked what the players said; when he heard their comments, he agreed.] "They're right on the mark. We had a chance to bury them and we could have buried them a number of ways. We could have buried them offensively and we could have buried them defensively and we let them off the hook. ... I think the players are right on the mark."
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