St. Louis, MO - Radek Dvorak's third-period goal proved to
be the game winner as St. Louis defeated Chicago, 4-3, at the Scottrade
Center.
Devorak also added an assist and Lee Stempniak had two helpers for the Blues.
Manny Legace stopped 19-of-22 shots in net for the Blues.
Jamie Rivers, Bill Guerin and Martin Rucinsky had the other goals for a St.
Louis team that has now won two in a row.
Chicago, meanwhile, falls to 2-2 on the season. They were coming off a 3-1
Thursday over Nashville and hoped to build on that momentum.
Martin Havlat tallied two goals for Chicago, giving him six goals and ten
points on the season. Bryan Smolinski also tallied his second goal of the
season.
Brian Boucher started his first game of the season between the pipes and
finished with 24 saves in the loss.
Dvorak broke a 3-3 tie with 6:18 left in the third. He took a pass from Petr
Cajanek and beat Boucher with a wrister from the left circle.
The Blackhawks drew first blood on a backhand shot by Havlat with 4:47
remaining in the first. The play materialized when Adrian Aucoin's shot flew
over the net and ricocheted back over the goal, landing out in front. Legace
tried to poke it away, but Havlat stuffed it into the net to give Chicago a
1-0 lead.
Chicago struck again just 52 seconds later, as Smolinski skated in all alone
and tallied a short-handed goal. The shot was a high wrister that beat Legace
to make it 2-0.
St. Louis battled back, scoring three unanswered goals to take a 3-2 lead.
First, they cut the lead in half with 2:33 left in the first period as Rivers
scored on the man-advantage. Then they evened the score in the second session
as Guerin tallied another power-play goal just 1:28 in.
Finally, with 9:17 remaining Rucinsky lit the lamp again for St. Louis, as
they took advantage of another power play to take the lead.
Chicago came out firing in the third. Just 1:34 into the period, Havlat
recorded his second goal of the contest. He sent a 13-foot wrister toward
Legace during an odd-man rush and the shot fooled the goaltender, who seemed
to be expecting Havlat to pass.
Game Notes
Smolinski's goal was the 250th of his career.
In just three games the
Blackhawks have tallied 18 goals.
Chicago was 0-for-6 on the power
play.
Coming into the night the Blues were 1-for-20 on the power play and
ended up going 3-for-4 on the evening.
© 2006 The Sports Network
USA
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