Tuesday, December 6, 2022 07:30 PM (ET)

Noel Acciari scores twice as Blues hang on to beat Islanders

Field Level Media
Dec 6, 2022

Noel Acciari scored twice Tuesday night for the visiting St. Louis Blues, who frittered away most of a four-goal third-period lead before holding off the New York Islanders 7-4 in Elmont, N.Y.

Josh Leivo, Ivan Barbashev, Ryan O'Reilly, Colton Parayko and Robert Thomas all scored a goal apiece for the Blues, who snapped a four-game losing streak and won for just the second time in eight games (2-6-0). Thomas Greiss made 36 saves against the Islanders, for whom he played from 2015 through 2020.

Noah Dobson scored in the first before Zach Parise, Hudson Fasching and Jean-Gabriel Pageau scored during the third-period flurry by the Islanders, who have lost three of four. Goalie Ilya Sorokin recorded 21 saves.

The teams traded goals within a 39-second span late in the first.

The Blues took a short-lived lead following a 2-on-1 in which Leivo, skating alongside O'Reilly, waited for Alexander Romanov to slide in between them before firing a shot under Sorokin's arm with 2:47 left.

Dobson quickly tied the score when he bore in on Greiss and scored off a backhanded pass from Mathew Barzal.

The Blues scored four unanswered goals in a span of just over 20 minutes bridging the second and third.

Barbashev capped another 2-on-1 with Romanov in the middle, 3:51 into the second, when Barbashev took a pass from William Bitten and beat Sorokin beyond his glove. O'Reilly dove around Romanov to put back the rebound of his own shot with 5:02 left in the second.

The Blues looked like they had put the game away by scoring twice in a span of 13 seconds early in the third. Acciari redirected a shot by Justin Faulk at the 3:37 mark. Parayko extended the lead to 5-1 when he took a pass from Jordan Kyrou at center ice, skated a couple strides and beat Sorokin from the blue line.

The Islanders began mounting their comeback fewer than two minutes later, when Parise scored at the 5:36 mark. New York scored twice in a 21-second span. Fasching scored his first goal since March 2016 by getting a stick on Matt Martin's shot with 5:17 left. Then Pageau's backhand glanced off Thomas' leg and fluttered past Greiss.

The Islanders pulled Sorokin with about 2:20 left but didn't generate a threat before Thomas scored an empty-netter with 1:57 left. Acciari added another insurance goal 52 seconds later.

--Field Level Media

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