Blues recover, score 6 to defeat Sabres

ST. LOUIS -- Brayden Schenn and Jake Neighbours each scored twice, and the St. Louis Blues recovered for a 6-4 win against the Buffalo Sabres at Enterprise Center on Thursday.

Schenn also had an assist, Kevin Hayes had a goal and an assist and Jordan Kyrou and Pavel Buchnevich each had two assists for the Blues (12-9-1), who surrendered a 3-0 lead before scoring three straight. Jordan Binnington made 42 saves.

"Roller-coaster game," Neighbours said. "That's not how we want to play obviously. We're happy that we got the two points, and we'll move on from it, but there's definitely areas that we can clean up. Just being harder, harder to play against, harder in our battles and stuff like that and just trying to piece together 60 minutes."

Rasmus Dahlin, Peyton Krebs and Zach Benson each had a goal and an assist for the Sabres (10-11-2), who were 3-1-1 their previous five games. Ukko-Pekka Luukkonen allowed six goals on 20 shots after allowing a total of five in his previous three starts.

"We had our chances," Dahlin said. "I mean, we played really good. We could have had five more goals. But they didn't want to go in today. It is what it is sometimes, but I think who got to just look forward. We played really good offense, we created a lot and we can't think too much about this."

Buffalo started its rally when Dahlin cut it to 3-1 at 13:32 of the first period off a point shot following a Nikita Alexandrov turnover in the defensive zone.

Benson made it 3-2 at 6:10 of the second period off a face-off win by Dylan Cozens, then a spin and shot between Binnington's pads.

Krebs tied it 3-3 at 10:53 off a long shot by Dahlin from the left point and a big rebound putback.

"I feel like we had them pretty hemmed in there in their zone for long stretches of time," Sabres center Casey Mittelstadt said. "... I think you saw a lot of Sabres hockey out there with the chances and the way we were creating."

St. Louis coach Craig Berube called a timeout after the tying goal, and the Blues scored twice in 24 seconds to regain the lead. Hayes made it 4-3 at 13:04 off a pass into the crease by Kyrou, and Schenn made it 5-3 at 13:28 off another pass into the slot by Kyrou.

"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. Can't be giving up 45 shots a night and relying on your goalies so much. 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."

Neighbours scored to make it 6-3 at 4:38 of the third period off a 2-on-0 with Buchnevich. JJ Peterka scored at 16:42 after the Sabres pulled Luukkonen for the 6-4 final.

Neighbours has five goals in his past four games and took over the Blues lead with nine.

"I thought that he had another strong game, being around that net, power play too," Berube said of Neighbours. "He's doing all the little things right and it's paying off for sure."

Brandon Saad's first goal in 12 games gave St. Louis a 1-0 lead at 1:08 of the first off a face-off win by Oskar Sundqvist and quick shot from the top of the right circle.

Schenn made it 2-0 at 5:02 on the Blues' fourth power-play goal in five games off a shot from inside the left circle that appeared to get tipped in front of Luukkonen.

Neighbours made it 3-0 at 10:59 when he collected Nick Leddy's point shot at the left of the net and put it in on the rebound.

"We created our own mess," Buffalo coach Don Granato said. "First period, I thought we had possession in the [defensive] zone and handed pucks over too easily, which is tough to recover from when you think you're exiting and you're not. They were very opportunistic, obviously, but we made the mess ourselves."

NOTES: Buchnevich has seven points (two goals, five assists) in his past four games. ... Dahlin has nine points (two goals, seven assists) in his past seven games. ... Mittelstadt had his seven-game point streak end in his 300th NHL game. ... The Blues honored former coach Ken Hitchcock and center Pierre Turgeon for their recent induction into the Hockey Hall of Fame.