The Blues stole one. They lost the expected-goals battle 3.82–2.58 and won anyway.
The Panthers dominated high-danger chances 8–1 yet lost 5–4, a statline that captures St. Louis's profligate evening. Finishing, not control, determined this result.
The underlying play favored Florida decisively. The Panthers generated 3.82 expected goals to the Blues' 2.58—a 60–40 split at 5v5 that understates their territorial grip. St. Louis compensated with shot volume (61% of attempts, 31–20 on goal), but volume without quality is just noise.
Where St. Louis stole this one: their finishing. Two goals came from low-danger opportunities—the kind of bounces a road team shouldn't bank on. Meanwhile, D. Tarasov faced 26 shots and posted a 0.839 save percentage, 2.42 goals worse than expected; he didn't gift St. Louis anything, but he didn't steal a game either. J. Hofer's 0.800 mark suggested pedestrian effort from a Florida attack that created more than it capitalized on.
The Panthers' power play was the game's other critical gap: two power-play goals from 19 shots, representing 1.80 expected goals. That's dangerous depth in a third-period environment. St. Louis' penalty discipline cost them more than it should have.
One note in St. Louis's favor: the rush. They scored five goals on just 24 rush attempts, efficient offensive cycling that mattered in transition. Florida managed only two goals on 28 chances from the same setup, a miss-rate that eventually proved costly.
The third period's decisive moment: Jimmy Snuggerud's snap shot from a sharp angle at 19:51 gave the Blues their foothold, and they never relinquished it despite the statistical weight against them. That's not resilience—that's variance rewarded.
