Goalie Jake Allen, making his first start of the postseason, turned away 31 of San Jose’s 34 shots, sending the series back to St. Louis on even terms for Game 5 on Monday. A giveaway by Joe Thornton on the power play led to Kyle Brodziak’s shorthanded 2-on-1 goal that made the game 3-0. They’re coming off perhaps their best game of the postseason, a convincing 6-3 victory that knotted the series at two games heading into Monday night’s game.
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The team rebounded from its first loss of the playoffs in similar fashion, scoring the first three goals of their first-round Game 4 win over the Los Angeles Kings after defenseman Drew Doughty suggested that his squad had planted seeds of doubt in the Sharks’ minds by taking Game 3 in overtime.
The Sharks also gave the Blues four looks with the man advantage, which is a recipe for disaster considering head coach Ken Hitchcock’s power play is converting at a 26.4 percent clip during the playoffs, it ranked sixth in the National Hockey League during the regular season (21.5 percent) and is facing a penalty kill that finished the year in 21st place (80.5 percent).
The St. Louis Blues are sticking with goalie Jake Allen in Game 5 of the Western Conference final against the San Jose Sharks.
We’ve got a list of stuff San Jose can work on.
Brouwer and Jori Lehtera scored in the first period and the Blues rolled after getting dominated the previous two games when they were outscored 7-0.
That made the final 6-3, with the Blues having scored an empty-net goal 49 seconds earlier on an Alex Pietrangelo shot that went three-quarters the length of the ice.
“I kinda think I know what I’m doing”, Hitchcock said. “He’s been unbelievable since the start of playoffs, but we needed, in my opinion, to jolt ourselves into playing a lot harder for whoever was in the net”. We played with more passion in front of him in our own zone because I made the goalie change.
“Jumbo makes a good play in there”, Pavelski said, “And for whatever reason, I let it go”.
St. Louis has come out with energy in Game 4. It ended Sharks goaltender Martin Jones’ shutout streak at 153 minutes, 56 seconds. There haven’t been any panic moments for San Jose since the postseason began. The Sharks, while they did have a couple of good early chances, couldn’t get the puck out of their zone like they had for much of the series. “We created a few chances, but we don’t get enough off it. We just really need to be sharp”.
Brodniak scored his first two goals of the playoffs in the second period, adding to San Jose’s misery.
If the Blues were to be without Backes’ services for any significant period of time due to an injury, it would most certainly impact the team’s play.
Like a mad scientist Hitchcock tinkered with his lineup putting Alexander Steen back with Paul Stastny and Troy Brouwer while keeping his most energetic line of Magnus Paajarvi, Kyle Brodziak and Dmitrij Jaskin together. “We hung (Jones) out to dry tonight”. We were relying on him, and there’s a big difference. We kind of got rid of it last night and didn’t want to deal with it that much because of the emotion of the game and everything. He fared well, enjoying the benefit of revitalized skaters in front of him. The Sharks-Blues victor will face the Eastern Conference champion, either Tampa Bay or Pittsburgh, in the Stanley Cup Finals.
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The Sharks played with a series lead in the conference final for the first time ever but now find themselves tied after four games, just as they were in their first trip in 2004 when they lost to Calgary in six.
