Nashville tops Blues in shootout tiebreaker

NASHVILLE, Tenn. -- Tomas Vokoun turned away both shots he faced in the shootout and the Nashville Predators won their sixth straight game to open the season by beating the St. Louis Blues 3-2 Thursday night.

The Predators have won half of their games by shootout and own the NHL's best mark (6-0).

Steve Sullivan and Marek Zidlicky both scored past St. Louis goalie Patrick Lalime in the new tiebreaker, and Vokoun turned away Petr Cajanek and Doug Weight.

The Blues fell to 2-4-1.

The Predators rallied in the third period to force overtime. Jeremy Stevenson scored his first goal of the season at 3:00 to make it 2-2.

Dean McAmmond gave St. Louis a 2-1 lead at 8:24 of the second period with his fourth goal of the season.

The Blues were short-handed for five minutes of the second period but the Predators failed to take advantage as David Legwand was stopped from the crease and Paul Kariya shot wide right on a breakaway.

After outshooting the Blues 7-2 for the first 15 minutes, the Predators took a 1-0 lead at 15:05 of the opening period when defenseman Dan Hamhuis put a shot from the left blue line past Lalime.

Skating in from the right faceoff circle, St. Louis defenseman Eric Brewer tied it at 1-1 when he beat Vokoun with a wrist shot with 1 second left on the Blues' only power play of the first period.

Brewer had scored the winning goal for St. Louis on Wednesday night in the final minute of a 3-2 victory against Anaheim.

Noteworthy

• St. Louis left wing Keith Tkachuk was placed on the injured list.

* Brewer's goal in the first period was the first given up on the power play by the Predators at home. In two home games, Nashville killed 11 short-handed situations.

* Nashville went 0-for-6 on the power play.

* After playing just their second road game of the season in their first seven games, the Blues return home Saturday night to play the Minnesota Wild.