But to hear the coaches of the St. Louis Blues and Dallas Stars tell it, the individual skates their teams took Monday ahead of Game 6 in the second-round playoff series was indicative of a whole lot more.
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Dallas Stars’ Mattias Janmark, of Sweden, celebrates after scoring past St. Louis Blues goalie Brian Elliott, right, and Carl Gunnarsson, left, of Sweden, during the first period of Game 6 of the NHL hockey Stanley Cup Western… Game time at the Scottrade Center is 7:00 p.m. CDT.
The Stars scored three times in the first period to chase goaltender Brian Elliott, then hung on the rest of the way and avoided elimination with a 3-2 victory despite being outshot 37-14. The last Game 7 at the AAC was a Dallas Mavericks game; that game was a Mavs win against the Houston Rockets in their first round series in 2005. That’s when Colton Sceviour took it behind the net and hit a cutting Vernon Fiddler, chipping it in for his first goal of the playoffs. It was Spezza’s first goal of the series to go along with three assists.
Alex Goligosky (4) scored the lone goal for Dallas in the loss.
ST. LOUIS – Another failed attempt to finish off a series means another Game 7 for the St. Louis Blues.
With the Blues trailing 3-1 heading into the third period, a goal by Patrik Berglund at the 8:59 mark fired up the standing-room only sellout crowd of 19,808 at Scottrade Center.
Shattenkirk walked through the defense and was in alone during a power play, but his shot sailed wide. They stuck around and hope the Blues still have some magic.
The Stars entered this game with just one power-play goal in this series and doubled that total when Jason Spezza toe-dragged his way to his fifth goal of the postseason, but first of this series. Spezza waltzed around the stick of Upshall and buried another shot over Elliott’s glove. Janmark had been scoreless three straight games. After a shot by Robert Bortuzzo, Steen buried the rebound for his fourth goal of the playoffs, trimming the deficit to 3-1 with 12:31 left in the period. The Blues are 5-for-18.
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Stars goalie Kari Lehtonen was under siege throughout the second period and he made a sparkling glove save to rob Vladimir Tarasenko early in the period. But in the closing minutes, after pulling Allen for an extra attacker, Lehtonen made a series of saves on Shattenkirk and Jaden Schwartz to seal the Stars’ win. “It’s a do-or-die game, and I don’t think we want to go back to Dallas, we want to win it here and we’ve set ourselves up for that”.
