ST. LOUIS -- The phrase that St. Louis Blues goalie Brian Elliott used to describe what he thinks will happen in overtime in the NHL this season was "whack and hack" goals.

Elliott got his first experience with that Saturday night when he allowed one of those kinds of goals four minutes into the three-on-three overtime, giving the New York Islanders a 3-2 win over the Blues.

Center Mikhail Grabovski scored the winning goal, which gave the Islanders their first win in St. Louis in nearly 10 years and snapped an overall five-game losing streak by the Islanders against the Blues.

"When a goal just kind of gets whacked across and batted in, it's frustrating," Elliott said. "It's going to take a while to figure stuff out. It's going to result in whack and hack goals. There's going to be some pretty ones, but a lot of them will just be kind of shuffled across and bounce off sticks and skates."

The goal was definitely a pretty one for Islanders coach Jack Capuano, no matter how it looked to Elliott, because it gave New York its first win over the Blues since March 5, 2011, and its first win in St. Louis since Dec. 6, 2005.

"It's exciting for the fans," Capuano said about the new overtime rules. "There's a lot of open ice. We've had a couple of them. As coaches, you've just got to utilize certain guys who you think can do the job."

One of those was Grabovski, who scored his first goal of the season off an assist from center Frans Nielsen.

"It was a great play from Frans," Grabovski said. "I just had to put it in."

The Islanders built a 2-0 lead through the first two periods before the Blues rallied to tie the score in the third period on goals from defenseman Colton Parayko and left winger Alexander Steen off an assist from Parayko.

New York goalie Thomas Greiss stopped 38 of 40 St. Louis shots, including three in overtime.

"I thought we really deserved more (than the one point)," Blues coach Ken Hitchcock said. "We missed a lot of chances in the second period, bang-bang plays at the net. We had some great opportunities."

Hitchcock also thought the Blues had their chances in overtime before the Islanders were able to get the winning goal.

"As a coach, you just know it's not going to a shootout," Hitchcock said. "Something's going to happen, and something did. It seems like almost all the goals (in overtime) come from the same situation, a turnover high in the offensive zone. You usually end up giving up an odd-man rush and you get scored on. I'll bet 95 percent of them are scored the same way."

The Blues were without several injured regulars, including two of their top six forwards -- left winger Jaden Schwartz and center Paul Stastny. Forward Scottie Upshall also missed the game when he got sick just an hour before the game.

"We're going to have to get a little bit creative with what we do with our roster," Hitchcock said. "But if we keep up our work ethic like we're doing right now and we keep our spirit up, we're going to get through this thing and hopefully come out better.

"We're in the manufacturing part of it now. We've got to manufacture points, manufacture goals. It's not going to come as smooth and easy as it once did."

NOTES: The Blues will be without LW Jaden Schwartz for at least three months because of a broken left foot. Schwartz was injured in practice on Friday. Schwartz was placed on injured reserve on Saturday, joining C Paul Stastny, who is out for at least five weeks because of a broken right foot suffered on Oct. 16 at Vancouver. ... Two more injured Blues, D Kevin Shattenkirk (lower body injury) and RW Robby Fabbri (concussion) are expected to play in the team's next game on Tuesday against Tampa Bay. ... RW Ty Rattie was in the Blues' lineup after being recalled from Chicago of the American Hockey League. ... RW Steve Bernier, who had missed the Islanders first seven games with a lower-body injury, was in the lineup for the first time since signing as a free agent after four years with New Jersey. ... The Islanders return home to host Calgary on Monday night.