The moment St. Louis Blues forward Patrik Berglund cut the lead to one nine minutes into the third period against the Dallas Stars, the Blues thought they had it. The Stars would pick up three goals in the opening period, eventually chasing Brian Elliott from the game. He robbed half the Blues roster with ridiculous pad saves, including a big stop on Paul Stastny and back-to-back saves on Vladimir Tarasenko in the second period.
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The main story line for the Blues throughout these playoffs has been the sensational goaltending of Brian Elliott.
Dallas would be looking up tee times if not for the 32-year-old Fin, who made some huge saves in the game’s final minute. “We pretty well played close to our best game, we just didn’t finish”. It worked out today.
Rookie Mattias Janmark, Vernon Fiddler and Jason Spezza scored for the Stars, who prevailed despite being outshot 37-14. Lehtonen has had an up-and-down series, but each of the Stars’ three wins started with him getting the nod in net.
St. Louis closed the gap to 3-2 midway through the second frame.
Captain David Backes, Alex Pietrangelo and Brouwer have noticed that the Blues have tended to play a simpler game on the road to compensate for the built-in advantages for home teams.
“He’s not ready to play yet”, Lindy Ruff told reporters after the skate.
“They said, ‘I bet they’ll never make it, ‘ but just look at us holding on”.
Teammates accepted responsibility for the deficit. I think we felt that the last series (against Minnesota) too.
“If we take care of second opportunities, he’s a guy that smothers pucks”, forward Scottie Upshall said. That 3-0 start ended up being just enough to post a 3-2 win, and force game 7.
“I want to sleep on what I’m going to do. I think it comes down to whoever has a little better night, and you work for that”.
Jake Allen finished in his first appearance of this postseason, facing just seven more shots in the final two-plus periods. A victory would send Hitchcock’s team to the Western Conference finals for the first time since 2001. Win and move on; lose and go home. That early show of strength muzzled another standing room crowd of 19,808 at the Scottrade Center with the first two goals coming in a span of 20 seconds. He blocked a shot by Colton Parayko and then got the jump on the Blues defensemen. Dallas intercepted, kept the puck in the zone and it was eventually centered from the far side for a deflection shot by Fiddler and a 2-0 lead not even a full six minutes into the game.
Both Western Conference semifinals will be decided in Game 7s later this week after the Stars and Predators staved off elimination with Game 6 wins in their respective series Monday.
So, none of the three goals were egregiously bad, though you might like Elliott to make a play on the first and third, neither of which were screened or redirected.
Most recently, Sharp scored a goal and set up the pass to Cody Eakin for the Game 4 overtime victor against the Blues.
Predicting the result of that one is a fool’s game because play has been different from period to period, let alone game to game, between the Stars and Blues.
Lehtonen entered this season with just eight games of playoff experience in 10 seasons.
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The Sharks, who missed out on the chance to close out this series, had a full week off after ousting the Los Angeles Kings in five games in the first round.
