Columbus Blue Jackets 3, St. Louis Blues 5 FINAL

ST. LOUIS (AP) -- The prospects for the St. Louis Blues didn't look good when they fell behind early in the third period.

Then Mark Rycroft, Eric Boguniecki and Dallas Drake came through with goals to lead the Blues to a 5-3 win over the Columbus Blue Jackets on Thursday night.

St. Louis had scored only 26 goals in the third period all season when Geoff Sanderson scored to give Columbus a 3-2 lead 1:05 into the final period.

"I thought we showed some resiliency to come back like that," St. Louis coach Joel Quenneville said. "We needed it."

Boguniecki scored twice and Chris Pronger also scored for St. Louis, which won for just the fourth time in its last 14 games.

Keith Tkachuk, who had two assists for the Blues, said the key was that the team went hard to the net.

"If you want to score goals, you have to go to the net," Tkachuk said. "That's where the puck is going to be."

Backup goalie Reinhard Divis made 23 saves to improve his record to 3-0 and keep the Blues perfect against the Blue Jackets (4-0-0-0).

"Do (we) feel snake big against St. Louis? Yeah, big time," Columbus coach Gerard Gallant said. "We played them tough. We compete hard every night. We just seem to fall short."

Sanderson, Todd Marchant and Nikolai Zherdev each had a goal and an assist for Columbus.

Columbus seemed to be in good shape when Sanderson score to make it 3-2.

But the Blues rallied. Rycroft tipped home Murray Baron's slap shot from the point to tie it at 8:43 of the period, and Boguniecki gave the Blues the lead 1:07 later when he converted Petr Cajanek's centering pass.

"We were controlling the play pretty much in the third period," Columbus goalie Marc Denis said. "I would have liked to have come up with a big save in a key moment, but it didn't happen."

Drake then added an empty net goal with 24.9 seconds left.

Boguniecki scored the first goal of the game 7:28 into the contest thanks in large part to Tkachuk. With the Blues on the power play, Tkachuk carried the puck from the right point into the slot. Tkachuk lost control of the puck, but Boguniecki was there to whip a quick shot past Denis.

Zherdev tied it with a power-play goal of his own at 13:39 of the first. But Pronger gave the Blues their one-goal lead back when his slap shot through traffic was deflected over Denis' shoulder 4:19 later.

Columbus tied the game again at 2 with 8:26 remaining in the second period when Marchant steered Sanderson's centering pass from the right boards past Divis.