Consider: Teams that fall behind 0-2 in a best-of-seven series win the series a mere 12.7 percent of the time (49 out of 385), while teams that manage to tie at 1-1, win 52.1 percent of the time (161 out of 309). The Ducks rallied to win the next three games to take a 3-2 series lead. The Wild can not fall into the trap of breezing into Game 2 Friday and expecting their superior scoring depth will allow them to just to pick up where they left off.
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Zach Parise tied it 1-1 at 17:44 of the second with a 5-on-3 power-play goal. Collapse down onto Allen and protect the net with vigor while waiting out loose pucks and bounces in the offensive zone. “He recognizes that there’s going to be situations and opportunities for him to create and obviously we need him to do that and against a tough-checking team we’re going to have to do a lot of other things well and he’s done that for us”.
Minnesota had a whopping 20 more shot attempts than the Blues in Game 2-outpacing them 59 to 39-but it was still only able to sneak one puck past Allen. This is the second-ever playoff series between the Blues and Wild, but it’s the 11th time St. Louis has faced a Minnesota team in the post-season. “He’s making some big, timely saves, which gives us a lot of momentum”.
“We just need to get the next one”. We were completely out of the playoffs.
Though the team wasn’t as aggressive offensively, the Blues remained stout behind the blues line. Yeo’s master plan was to get the Wild so frustrated and flustered that they would begin doing the exact things that ultimately helped get him fired in Minnesota.
The Blues opened the scoring early in the second period when game one hero, Joel Edmundson, scored on a shot from the blue line.
It was the only mistake he had all day.
The Blues won their first two games of the Western Conference Quarterfinals against the Minnesota Wild, both 2-1 road victories over an emerging division rival.
He made 51 saves in Game 1 to allow his St. Louis Blues a chance to win it in overtime, and they did. With the Blues history, as well as big defenseman and Ryan Reaves on the roster, there was an impression the Wild may struggle to play physical playoff hockey alongside St. Louis.
“Phenomenal performance”, Yeo said. “I keep saying unbelievable, (using) the best words, I guess”.
Yeo likely had a good laugh if he saw this quote.
The Blues played the flawless postseason road game for 59 minutes, 37 seconds until the levee finally broke when Zach Parise buried the tying goal with 22.7 ticks remaining in the third period off a deft set-up by Mikko Koivu. The Blues got an even-strength goal from Colton Parayko in the first period, then added an empty-net goal from Alexander Steen on Sunday after Dubnyk was pulled for an extra attacker. Down 0-1 in the series, there is even less room for error now. They’re going to throw everything at us and we’re excited to go home for sure. He has been the best player on either team thus far in the series.
Eleven seconds into the game, Dubinsky put a shot on Fleury’s pads and Atkinson was in the right place to score on the rebound, pumping up a sold-out Nationwide Arena crowd hungry for some playoff prosperity. Again, one game at a time. “Let’s just win one game.’ And take it from there”.
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In 2014, Armstrong lamented the lack of a killer instinct.
