ST. LOUIS -- A tale of two games it was.
Call it the good, the bad, the ugly and the good again.
A little bit of everything with the St. Louis Blues in their 6-4 win against the Buffalo Sabres at Enterprise Center on Thursday.
The Blues (12-9-1) jumped out to a three-goal lead and saw it evaporate by the middle of the second before scoring twice in less than half a minute and put the game away in the third period, thanks to Jake Neighbours' second goal of the game and Jordan Binnington's heroic 42-save effort.
The Sabres (10-11-2) outshot the Blues 46-20 for the game.
Let's take a look at the see-saw battle that unfolded:
* First Period -- The Blues had a shooter's mentality early in the game, and it paid off.
Brayden Schenn, who had two goals and an assist, was robbed by Ukko-Pekka Luukkonen just 1:05 into the game on a lunging save with his left arm off a rebound.
However, Brandon Saad put the Blues ahead 1-0 just thee seconds later when he took an Oskar Sundqvist face-off win and fired a puck from the top of the right circle off Luukkonen and in.
Jordan Greenway took a tripping minor when he brought down Kyrou at 4:56, and the Blues needed all of six seconds to go ahead 2-0 on Schenn's goal.
Robert Thomas won a face-off to Torey Krug, who fed Schenn at the left point and the Blues captain glided into the left circle and used Neighbours as a screen to score.
The Blues killed the first of three Buffalo power plays when Alexey Toropchenko was whistled for hooking at 5:56, then the Sabres went back to their PK when Rasmus Dahlin was called for interference at 8:13 but no damage was done by either power play.
Neighbours made it 3-0 at 10:59 when Nick Leddy, getting a puck and throwing it to the net, saw Neighbours there, and Neighbours tipped the puck to himself from right to left before depositing it into the net.
And it happened to come with his dad, Ed Neighbours, being interviewed by Bally Sports Midwest.
"Obviously crazy timing, pretty cool," Neighbours said. "I don't think he realized it was me right away, but that's a pretty cool moment."
As for the commentary by his dad?
"I would say it was poor actually," Neighbours joked. "Not the best. He could have broken it down a little bit better, but that's funny."
The Sabres, who were pressing all first period and outshot the Blues 15-8, started their comeback when Dahlin wired a long slapper through traffic past Binnington at 13:32 to make it 3-1 after a Nikita Alexandrov d-zone turnover.
It stayed that way because Binnington was able to deny Zach Benson right in front at 14:40.
Toropchenko tried giving the Blues a fourth with a hard rush off the right edge but his shot was blocked before getting to the net at 15:49.
* Second Period -- When Tyler Tucker was called for holding at 2:08, it was almost like an omen of things to come.
The Blues killed the penalty, but the Sabres continued to push and finally made it 3-2 at 6:10 when Benson whirled around and scored off a face-off win by Dylan Cozens, perhaps surprising Binnington on the play.
Binnington was then called into action twice to keep it a one-goal game when he made a terrific left toe save on Kyle Okposo from the slot at 7:30, then stopped Casey Mittelstadt's breakaway at 9:28 after an errant Blues pass off the rush.
But the dam broke and Buffalo tied it 3-3 when Peyton Krebs scored off a long rebound at 10:53 and coach Craig Berube, who coached sick, called a time out.
"We went out in the first period, I thought we did a good job, got the lead, played pretty good," Berube said. "Second period, we just kind of weren't available for pucks, we didn't move the puck. When we did, we didn't put it on the tape, we put it to the other team. That's all self-inflicted wounds."
There wasn't a ton Berube had to say, even though he had every right to.
"He didn't have to say anything special," Schenn said of Berube. "We were going out there and just shooting ourselves in the foot. Turned over pucks and not playing hard enough. Just not tonight, but in general in the second period. That's something we have to change. "
It was more calming relief from Berube.
"It wasn't much. He just wanted to settle us down and take a deep breath," Neighbours said. "We're in a good spot, tight hockey game and kind of just go from there. He didn't say too much, wasn't doing much screaming. It was just, 'Take a breath here, settle down and start playing again."
They didn't take long.
The line with Kyrou, Schenn and Kevin Hayes took control, and Kyrou did much of it with his skating ability, first with the help of Schenn to deflect a Mattias Samuelsson zone exit into a turnover, then feeding Hayes for a redirection at 13:04 for a 4-3 lead.
And then Kyrou blazed in off the left edge, cut to the middle, spun and fed Schenn coming down the slot to pot home another one to make it 5-3 just 24 seconds later.
"Just got to get back to our game, get back to moving our feet and playing harder," Kyrou said. "We weren't really winning any battles, we weren't skating. We did that after."
"'Rouzy' was skating tonight," Schenn said. "He was making plays for us and making things happen. One game, something to build off for us. Just by his legs, he turned the game around and made it happen. All of the sudden, we're up two goals. That's the game-breaker stuff he has in him."
The Blues caught a huge break that could have made this a dicey game again when a Colton Parayko giveaway almost resulted in a Sabres goal, but Mittelstadt fanned on an empty net off a Jeff Skinner pass, then couldn't corral the rebound at the side of the net with 2:58 remaining.
The Sabres were outshooting the Blues 31-14 and probably couldn't believe they were losing.
* Third Period -- Buffalo kept coming -- sense a theme here -- but Neighbours for all intents and purposes put the game on ice when he converted a 2-on-0 with Pavel Buchnevich after Buchnevich raced and won a puck from Owen Power, then skated past the Sabres defenseman to create the opportunity.
The Blues killed another penalty, by Buchnevich this time, at 10:10 for tripping giving the PK another perfect night, but JJ Peterka scored with 3:18 remaining for the 6-4 final after Binnington continued to make saves to preserve the lead.
"Can't be giving up 45 shots a night and relying on your goalies so much," Schenn said. "Two points, we'll definitely take it. It's a tight league, but we've got lots to clean up here and start tilting the ice a little bit and start taking over games."
