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Boyes' late goal helps Blues edge Sabres

Nov 29, 2007 - 4:31 AM BUFFALO, New York (Ticker) -- Brad Boyes and the St. Louis Blues came out ahead in a see-saw battle.

Boyes scored the game-winning goal with under a minute left as the Blues edged the Buffalo Sabres, 4-3, on Wednesday.

Mike Johnson had a goal and an assist and Paul Kariya and Martin Rucinsky also tallied for St. Louis, which has won seven of its last eight games.

The Blues also have not lost here in over 12 years, going 6-0-0 with two ties since dropping a 5-2 decision to the Sabres on October 22, 1995.

With this one knotted at 3-3, Boyes tried to score during a scrum in front of the net. After being denied, he skated behind the net and came around the right goalpost before knocking a loose puck past sprawled goaltender Ryan Miller with just 58 seconds remaining.

"Miller was trying to put his glove on it, but it poked free", Boyes said. "Someone chipped it over him and it was about to go in before (Jason Pominville) whacked it out. The guys kept scrambling, and as I was looking around to see what was going on, the puck was laying there. I just put it in."

It was Boyes' team-leading 14th tally of the season.

St. Louis had rallied from a 2-0 deficit earlier in the contest, scoring three unanswered goals before Buffalo forged a 3-3 tie on defenseman Andrej Sekera's blast from the blue line with 9:58 left in the third.

Rucinsky jammed a shot past Miller with just under five minutes remaining in the middle session to get the Blues on the board, and Kariya banged in a rebound during a 2-on-1 rush to tie it at 3:45 of the third.

"Buffalo's a team that doesn't give up leads very often," Boyes said. "We controlled the play well but didn't get a lot of glorious chances. It was more of a mind set of, keep going at them. In the third ,we finally broke around them a little bit and got a few goals."

Just 2 1/2 minutes later, Johnson ripped a shot that beat Miller on the short side to give the Blues their first lead.

"We got chances, we just weren't burying them", Blues center Keith Tkachuk said. "We put it in an extra gear there. We were skating, driving to the net more. Mike Johnson made a great shot. We got a couple lucky bounces, but when you play hard and skate, you get breaks."

Manny Legace stopped 20 shots while Tkachuk and defenseman Bryce Salvador each recorded two assists for the Blues.

"We played well tonight," St. Louis coach Andy Murray said. "We thought our game was good, and we've been in that situation before where we've been down but liked our chances. Our team just kept persevering, and fortunately, some pucks went in for us."

"We were very careless with the puck," Sabres coach Lindy Ruff said. "We didn't take care of it, and it hurt us."

Miller made 28 saves for the Sabres, whose season-high five-game winning streak came to an end.

"We score three goals and you hope that wins the game," Buffalo defenseman Brian Campbell said. "We liked our chances in the final minutes at least to get it into OT.

"There'll be a few mistakes we're going to look at and correct. We need to get back to what wins hockey games. We've showed that lately."