ST. LOUIS — Jake Neighbours spoke earlier in the day on Thursday that the production from him was coming.
The St. Louis Blues forward came into the game Thursday against the New York Islanders without a point in the first four games and was a minus-5.
Not only did Neighbours get on the scoreboard on Thursday, but he finished off a 1-0 overtime win in emphatic fashion.
Neighbours finished off a redirect of a Philip Broberg saucer pass off a 3-on-1at 2:04 of OT to cap off a tight-knit game at Enterprise Center on Thursday.
Neighbours was driving the net on a 3-on-1 rush and redirected a pass from Broberg inside the left post past Islanders goalie Ilya Sorokin.
“Just a great read by ‘Hof,'” Neighbours said of goalie Joel Hofer. “He’s so good at playing the puck and obviously he saw we had numbers up the ice and made a great play to ‘Broby.’ I just tried to drive through that d-man. I think ‘Saader’ was off my back side there and ‘Broby’ made a great read and laid one in there for me.”
Hofer had the puck on his stick when he received it back from Pavel Buchnevich as the Blues were making player changes. Hofer saw a chance to get the puck up ice quickly and went off the boards to Broberg.
“I just saw their guy was kind of poaching in a little bit and I saw ‘Broby’ kind of making his way to the o-zone,” Hofer said. “Just trying to bypass the forward was all I was trying to do.”
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It was a well-played, tight game throughout with each team taking turns turning scoring chances into potential goals but each goalie was up to the task.
There was the sense from the get-go that the game itself was going to be low-scoring and a one-goal game.
“We knew from the start they weren’t going to give up much,” Blues defenseman Ryan Suter said of the Islanders. “We knew that we had to defend hard. They’ve got some good players. We stuck with it and outlasted them.”
Hofer, who allowed four goals in a 5-4 overtime win against the San Jose Sharks a week ago Thursday, was much sharper and locked in going against a formidable counterpart at the other end in Sorokin, who was equally as impressive on this night.
“He’s amazing. He’s real fun to watch,” Hofer said of Sorokin. “Those are fun games to be a part of, especially against those kinds of guys on the other side. It was a good to get the win though.”
The Blues (3-2-0) got back to their winning ways by ending a modest two-game slide and were patient throughout in not trying to force things…