The Blues will be at home Monday, but home teams are just 94-67 (.584) all-time in Game 7s in the Stanley Cup playoffs, including 3-2 in 2015. In a ideal world, the Stars should have been able to counter-attack and score, sort of how Jamie Benn did in the second, but they simply were not able to relieve the pressure enough.It was a lesson learned that this team can’t just sit back and try to defend. Lehtera deflected a shot by Bouwmeester past Chicago goalie Corey Crawford (23 saves) for his first career playoff goal, and Parayko scored on a blast from the point while Alexander Steen was screening Crawford in front of the net.NOTES: The only previous time the Blues and Blackhawks met in a Game 7 was in 1990, when the Blackhawks won the Norris Division finals with an 8-2 win in Chicago….
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“You don’t want to regret anything”, Stastny said.
St. Louis will next take the ice later this week when they head to Dallas to take on the Stars in the second round of the postseason. But the Blues put that to rest Monday, winning their first game seven, again poetically, since Joel Quenneville, the current Hawks coach was behind their bench in 1999.
The Blues were led by forwards Jaden Schwartz (three goals, four assists), Vladimir Tarasenko (four goals, two assists) and defenseman Alex Pietrangelo (one goal, five assists) in their series against the Blackhawks.
“I heard post-post and I thought just get back as soon as I could”, Pietrangelo said. “I think when you play in more of them, when you get the opportunity to play in more of them, you get… comfortable is not the right word, but you get not as nervous, I guess”. The Blackhawks are 11-9 in winner-take-all contests all-time (includes all series). Patrick Kane’s 26-game point streak, a record for an American player.
The Blues are looking to win their first series since 2012 and break the unsettling trend of exiting in the first round, which they have done in the last three seasons.
Anaheim’s 5-2 victory Saturday was the first by a home team in this series, so that could mean there’s not much of an advantage for Nashville in Game 6 (8:30 p.m. today, CNBC). Expect to see the Blues blasting ‘Hawks players with as many hits as possible.
Hawks defenseman David Rundblad saw an uptick in his ice time during Game 6 to 10 minutes, 34 seconds after he played just 6:51 of Game 5, which went to double overtime. They win the Stanley Cup in the next series.
After spotting the Blues an early 2-0 lead, the Blackhawks came back to tie the game on goals by Marian Hossa and Shaw.
St. Louis boast four lines which are capable carrying the team at any time.
Allen: This is also a flawless time for St. Louis goalie Brian Elliott to prove he can he can be a big-game playoff goalie.
“That was the ugliest goal I’ve ever scored”, said Brouwer, who has eight career playoff goals.
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On the flight home, Blues coach Ken Hitchcock pondered what went wrong in the 6-3 loss and felt better before the plane landed. Defensively, the Blues are yielding 2.4 goals per game and ranking 2nd in penalty kill with 85.1 percent. “I’m sure they’re sitting over there saying, ‘If we get it to a Game 7, we win'”. “Hopefully we can go out and have a good start”. This is what we play for: these type of games, and these series and playing late into the year.
