O'Reilly has goal, assist for Blues in win against Stars

DALLAS --Ryan O'Reilly broke a tie with 2:53 remaining in the third period, and the St. Louis Blues defeated the Dallas Stars 3-1 at American Airlines Center on Friday.

O'Reilly and Ivan Barbashev each had a goal and an assist, David Perron had two assists, and Jake Allen made 31 saves for the Blues (16-5-6), who are 4-1-1 in their past six games.
"It was really good for a lot of the game, for sure," Blues coach Craig Berube said. "We gave up some chances and Jake was excellent. It's a good team over there. They're one of the better teams in the League. They're a deep, veteran team."
WATCH: [All Blues vs. Stars highlights]
Roope Hintz scored, and Ben Bishop made 37 saves for the Stars (15-10-2), who have lost their past two games after winning seven in a row.
"I didn't think we skated as well as we've been skating," Stars coach Jim Montgomery said. "I thought the Blues won the majority of one-on-one battles, and I thought their puck support was quicker than ours, offensively and defensively, which led to them having a lot of possession time more than we would like."

Hintz scored with a wrist shot on the rush at 16:49 of the third period, nine seconds after coming out of the penalty box, to tie the game at 1-1.
"I saw that they lost the puck on our blue line," Hintz said. "So I just thought that I'm going to skate towards their end. Blake [Comeau] joined with me and he gave me a nice pass."
O'Reilly scored on the rush 18 seconds later to give the Blues a 2-1 lead. It was his first goal after a nine-game goalless drought.
"It's been very frustrating not contributing offensively like I need to," O'Reilly said. "But we're finding ways to win hockey games. It's nice to contribute tonight like that. It was a great play by all of the guys on the ice to score a goal like that."
Berube agreed.
"He does so many good things without the puck, it's just a matter of time before they start going in," Berube said. "He's a great two-way player and just because he's not scoring doesn't mean he's not playing well. It was nice to see him get a goal there."
Barbashev scored into an empty net with three seconds remaining for the 3-1 final.
"I thought our whole game was pretty sound," Allen said. "Our forwards were tracking back and changing at the right times. Getting fresh bodies on at the right times was really impressive. I thought in the second period our changes were unbelievable. That makes a difference. It's little things like that that not a lot of people notice but go a long way to win games."
Colton Parayko gave the Blues a 1-0 lead at 15:41 of the first period on a wrist shot from the blue line.
"I was just trying to throw it towards the net and try to create something," Parayko said. "But there was a lot of bodies in front and it's tough for goalies, especially if you can't see me or see the puck coming at them. It's tough to get prepared for the shot."
Nathan Walker appeared to score at 15:35 of the second period in his St. Louis debut, but Dallas challenged for offside and the call was reversed on video review.
The Stars did not have a power play. The Blues were 0-for-2.
"I didn't think we did enough to draw penalties," Montgomery said. "Without the puck very much you're going to be chasing the game, so it doesn't lead to a lot of opportunities to draw penalties."

They said it

"They're hard, heavy games. They're playoff games basically every time. It's kind of a typical Central Division game where everybody's tight and whoever makes the most of their opportunities usually wins. There were opportunities both ways, our goalie made some big saves, their goalie made some big saves, and we just kept pace." -- Blues defenseman Colton Parayko on playing the Stars
"Unfortunately, yeah, and over the course of seven games we saw how that wore us down. It's an opportunity for us to get better. That's what tonight is. We would have liked to come out victorious but we didn't, and frankly didn't deserve to. We've got to get better. We're not even 30 games in." -- Stars coach Jim Montgomery on if the game reminded him of last season's Stanley Cup Playoff series with the Blues

Need to know

The Blues are 7-0-2 in their past nine road games, two short of their record of 11 (10-0-0 with one tie) set in 1999-00. … Perron (three goals, four assists) and teammate Brayden Schenn (two goals, four assists) each extended their point streak to six games. … Defenseman Derrick Pouliot had two hits in 10:36 in his Blues debut. … Blues defenseman Alex Pietrangelo had a game-high six shots on goal. … St. Louis is 5-1-1 against the Central Division. … … Hintz scored his team-leading 11th goal and has five goals in his past seven games. … Dallas defenseman Miro Heiskanen played a game-high 25:09.

What's next

Blues: Host the Pittsburgh Penguins on Saturday (8 p.m. ET; FS-MW, ATTSN-PT, NHL.TV)
Stars: At the Minnesota Wild on Sunday (3 p.m. ET; ESPN+, FS-N, FS-WI, FS-SW+, NHL.TV)