Islanders forward Ryan Strome was scratched in Game 4 against the Tampa Bay Lightning – the third time he’s been scratched in the playoffs – and his role for the rest of the series is in limbo. Go for more, more, more.
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Dallas’ Cody Eakin scored at 2:58 of overtime to give the Stars a 3-2 win at St. Louis on Friday, bouncing back smartly from a blowout loss two days earlier and tying their National Hockey League second-round playoff series at two games apiece. Vladimir Tarasenko was the lone player to collect three points with a goal and two assists.
The 6-1 win puts the Blues up two games to one in the series. And I thought we did. “Obviously we need to bring a better effort (Thursday)”.
Their other five wins were decided by one goal, including 4-3 in overtime in Game 2 on Sunday after the Stars came from two goals down.
“That’s the nice thing about finishing first, we’ve got home court advantage back and it’s a race to two, and it’s going to be a lot of fun”, said Eakin, a wad of gauze stuffed up his left nostril after taking a shot to the beak just before scoring the victor. When you don’t take advantage of those early opportunities against the Dallas Stars, we saw during the regular season they’re going to be able to come back and get you. The St. Louis Blues are averaging 2.7 goals per game and are scoring on 21.5 percent of their power plays.
Since blowing a two-goal lead in Game 2 and almost letting that opportunity slip away, the message has been consistent from the Blues’ players and coaching staff. I don’t think they’ve been as loud. Even so, Goligoski said nobody was blaming the goalies for the two losses. “We’ve got to play our same style of game, put it out there and when we do that the chips fall on our side of the table more often than not”. “Losing confidence in our goalies is not an issue”. After getting the best of Curtis McKenzie in a fight, Reaves rubbed it in a bit.
Josh Bailey scored two goals while Nick Leddy and Cal Clutterbuck each added a goal for the Islanders, who are in second round for the first time since 1993.
Kari Lehtonen might have ended the Dallas Stars’ recent goaltender carousel after leading them to a crucial overtime victory.
David Backes, who had a roller coaster game himself with more valleys than peaks, took a foolish tripping penalty nearly immediately following the Stars goal.
“Now we’ve got a whole new series”, Benn said. For what it’s worth, the Stars are 4-1 in their last five games after surrendering five or more goals in the previous game. The man-advantage lasted just 23 seconds for St. Louis though, as Alex Steen got the gate for interference. After the Edmundson boondoggle turned the game around and the Stars capitalized on the power play, it was 2-1, and things were weird.
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The Stars just missed a chance to tie it late in the period. A video review overturned the would-be goal by Jason Demers, which hit the crossbar and never went in the net. Instead of being discouraged, I thought we were really in a different mental frame. That created a great scoring chance for St. Louis.
