St. Louis’ Vladimir Tarasenko scored first on a breakaway goal halfway through the opening period.
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ST. LOUIS (AP) – In short order, the Dallas Stars went from embarrassed to triumphant.
Alexander Steen and David Backes had two goals apiece and the St. Louis Blues’ defense put the clamps on the Dallas Stars in a 6-1 victory that put them up 2-1 in the second-round series Tuesday night. “I think the deeper we can play our lineup, the better”. Radek Faska and Patrick Sharp scored in the 2nd period for the Stars.
After that, the two teams traded scoring chances in a fairly tightly checked game that seemed to get more physical as it progressed.
“We’ve put two good efforts out there, and we need two more”.
Tarasenko also had a three-point game in the first round against Chicago.
Dallas’ Cody Eakin may have been silent on Thursday, but he showed up at the ideal time, as his overtime game-winner was also his first shot of the game. “It doesn’t matter if we’re in Dallas, if we’re in St. Louis, if we’re in the middle of nowhere”.
To sum things up, the Dallas Stars simply need to be more physical, which could require scratching a few players in favor of youth. In the regular season, Benn, Sharp and Eakin, who’s taking the spot of an injured Tyler Seguin, combined for 77 goals. Goligoski received a pass from Vernon Fiddler and beat Blues goaltender Brian Elliott high to the far post on a wrist shot from the edge of the left circle. “We’ve had failures before and we’ve learned from them”, he said. “It’s a race to two, and it’s going to be a lot of fun”.
The Stars are 1-2 in overtime in the playoffs and the Blues are 2-2.
Game 5 is Sunday in San Jose. “I said it’s time for us to man up, and I thought we did”. Kari Lehtonen wasn’t spectacular by any means while making 24 saves, but he didn’t cost them with any blunders, either.
“It nearly looked like it was on the outside of the net, and then went in”, Elliott said. Neither capitulated, and the game would head to overtime. He has 15 goals in 23 career playoff games.
This time of year teams will take any bulletin board material they can get. “A little bit of a rough start, we gave up a couple of doozies to Tarasenko, but after that, it was a heck of a game. That was on me”. The GWG stat does hold at least minimal weight here, seeing as the Stars did score first in the game. They are scoreless in 11 attempts on the man advantage this series. After the Edmundson boondoggle turned the game around and the Stars capitalized on the power play, it was 2-1, and things were weird.
“It’s like he’s on the beach and there’s the ocean”, Hitchcock said. “They’ll slam their stick, they’ll drag their arms and in that second, something else bad can happen”, Ruff said. Paul Stastny had his first of the postseason off a deflection from Tarasenko.
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They had suffered a rare blowout loss in the playoffs, they complained about a blown kiss from Blues enforcer Ryan Reaves and were dealing with a goaltending quagmire since neither Kari Lehtonen or Antti Niemi had seemingly found a way to lock down the starter’s job.
