Jake Neighbours understands what needs to be done for the St. Louis Blues.
The forward was a presence at the net front, even though he continues to take a beating doing it; he was physically engaged and putting pucks at the net.
Neighbours scored for the third time in four games, a power-play goal that got the Blues back into their game against the New York Islanders on Saturday, only to fall 3-1 at UBS Arena.
Neighbours, who leads the Blues with seven goals, scored a power-play marker 45 seconds into the third period when he finished a Pavel Buchnevich through the crease pass, beating Ilya Sorokin to give the Blues life and get them back to within one at 2-1.
With the Blues (9-12-1) playing their best period of the game, Neighbours was involved with doing his part in getting the offense going. The coaching staff even recognized his and moved him up with Robert Thomas and Buchnevich on the top line.
Neighbours led the Blues with five shots on goal, including a Grade A chance from the slot off a Thomas pass from behind the net; he also led them with six hits in 19:53. Neighbours was a minus-2, but this is a perfect example of how plus-minus is skewed. He had nothing to do with a direct turnover for the first goal except be on the ice and also an empty-net goal.
Neighbours had himself a really strong game. So did Jordan Binnington, who gets honorable mention here for keeping the Blues in the game with a number of quality stops, making 28 saves.
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