Blues score twice in 12 seconds late in third period, defeat Ducks

ANAHEIM -- The St. Louis Blues scored twice in the final 1:04 of the third period for a 5-4 win against the Anaheim Ducks at Honda Center on Wednesday.

Alex Pietrangelo scored with 52 seconds left for a 5-4 lead after Robert Thomas tied it 4-4 with his second goal of the game with 1:04 remaining and goalie Jordan Binnington pulled for an extra attacker.
"That was a big character win for us. You could tell by how excited we were on the bench," Thomas said. "Good teams find a way to win when it's not their best night."
WATCH: [All Blues vs. Ducks highlights]
Pietrangelo, Ryan O'Reilly and Brayden Schenn each had a goal and an assist, and Colton Parayko and Vladimir Tarasenko each had two assists for the Blues (35-25-6), who moved three points in front of the Dallas Stars for third in the Central Division.
Binnington made 23 saves to improve to 12-2-0 in his past 14 starts.
Troy Terry had three assists for the Ducks (26-33-9), who had scored three straight goals to take a 4-3 lead. Jaycob Megna scored his first NHL goal and had an assist. Nick Ritchie, Rickard Rakell and Adam Henrique also scored, and John Gibson made 28 saves.
Twelve seconds after Parayko's shot went off the end boards and right to Thomas, who scored from near the right post, Pietrangelo's shot from the right point went off the skate of Henrique and into the net.

"Couple lucky bounces, really," Ducks assistant Marty Wilford said.
Henrique had scored at 5:07 of the third period for a 4-3 lead. Megna took a shot from the point, Binnington made the save but the rebound popped in the air in front of him. Binnington came out of his crease to try and glove the puck but was unsuccessful and it was swept toward Henrique, who scored into the open net.

Rakell scored on a power play at 15:39 of the second period to make it 3-2, and Megna tied it 3-3 with a slap shot at 17:51.
"It's definitely exciting," Megna said of his first goal, which came in his 30th NHL game. "It's something I've been working towards for a while. It's a lifelong dream."

The Blues had the first six shots on goal before the Ducks scored with their first.
Terry won the puck behind the net and drew two defenders two him before he backhanded a pass off the end boards to a wide-open Ritchie on the other side. Ritchie had room to skate out from behind the net and score on the far side for a 1-0 lead at 5:28 of the first period.
Tarasenko took a wrist from the top of the left circle and Schenn deflected it past Gibson as he came across the front of the crease, tying the game 1-1 at 8:03.

Anaheim defenseman Hampus Lindholm was in the penalty box for the next two goals.
O'Reilly scored short side on a wrist shot from the right circle for a 2-1 lead at 15:55 with Lindholm off for holding, and Thomas scored short side from the right circle to make it 3-1 at 13:53 of the second period with Lindholm in the box for hooking.
"I thought we stayed with it," Blues coach Craig Berube said. "We had a good first period, I thought, and let them back in the game in the second period. They got that goal in the third, but we were positive on the bench, guys were good and stayed with it. We ended up fortunately getting the winner."

They said it

"I don't think anyone here would say that it was our best game, but we found a way to win and we've got to keep building here." -- Blues defenseman Alex Pietrangelo
(The Ducks) played extremely hard and had a chance to win playing a team sitting here waiting for us. We threw everything at them, just some unlucky bounces that were out of our control." -- Ducks assistant Marty Wilford

Need to know

Schenn returned after missing six games with an upper-body injury. ... Pietrangelo scored his 22nd game-winning goal for St. Louis, tying Al MacInnis for the most among defensemen in team history. Pietrangelo has six points (four goals, two assists) in the past five games. … Tarasenko had two assists and has 201 in his NHL career. … The Blues are 24-6-3 when a defenseman scores at least one goal this season. ... O'Reilly set NHL career highs with his 40th assist and 65th point of the season. O'Reilly went 23-for-39 (59 percent) on face-offs; his teammates were 7-for-30 (23 percent). ... Ritchie had missed the past two games with a lower-body injury. ... Anaheim defenseman Brendan Guhle did not play after sustaining an upper-body injury in a 3-1 win at the Arizona Coyotes on Tuesday. ... The Ducks took a 1-0 lead in the first six minutes of the first period for the third straight game. ... Anaheim forward Jakob Silfverberg has five points (two goals, three assists) in the past three games.

What's next

Blues:At the Los Angeles Kings on Thursday (10:30 p.m. ET; FS-W, FS-MW, NHL.TV)
Ducks: Host the Montreal Canadiens on Friday (10 p.m. ET; ESPN+, FS-W, TSN2, RDS, NHL.TV)