UNDATED (AP) _ The St. Louis Blues hoisted their first Stanley Cup banner to the rafters Wednesday night before falling to the 2018 champions.
Jakub Vrana scored at 2:51 of overtime to give the Washington Capitals a 3-2 victory at St. Louis.Sammy Blais and Alex Pietrangelo scored in the first eight minutes to give the Blues a 2-0 led over Washington. Blais scored on the Blues’ first shot 53 seconds into the game, and Pietrangelo added a power-play goal.
But reigning goal-scoring champ Alex Ovechkin got the Capitals within 2-1 later in the first period before Dmitry Orlov tied it in the second. Ryan O’Reilly had the secondary assist on the two St. Louis goals. Lars Eller set up the Caps’ first two tallies and John Carlson also finished with two assists.
Elsewhere on the NHL’s opening-night schedule:
_ Auston Matthews scored twice while the Maple Leafs put four shots past Craig Anderson in the second period of a 5-3 victory against the Senators. The game was tied 2-2 until Matthews tallied twice in a 6:48 span, giving him nine goals in his four season-opening games since being drafted first overall in 2016. Ilya Mikheyev provided a goal and an assist in his NHL debut, and Tyson Barrie had two assists in his first game for Toronto.