Backes scored off a rebound during a power play 10:58 into overtime of Game 2 on Sunday for a 4-3 victory over the Dallas Stars.
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After St. Louis sat on a two-goal lead and Dallas dominated the third period to erase it, forcing overtime on Jamie Benn’s goal at 2:36, all indications were the Stars were streaking toward a two-games-to-none lead, until Roussel was called for interfering with Jay Bouwmeester at 9:19 in OT.
Benn has five goals and 12 points in eight playoff games in 2016.
Instead of a two-game hole, the Blues go home 1-1 in the best-of-seven series featuring the Western Conference’s top two teams.
When someone remarked to Jason Spezza that they didn’t’ know much about Faksa, the veteran center responded, “Well, you’re going to learn”.
Benn scored off a rebound with heavy traffic in front of the St. Louis net. Game 3 is Tuesday night in St. Louis. Robby Fabbri and Kevin Shattenkirk each had two assists.
Blues defenseman Alex Pietrangelo played 35 minutes, 37 seconds in Game 2 and equaled Alexander Steen with a team-high 43 shifts.
We’ve reset the Play of the Day with fresh bankrolls and turned it into a yearly competition.
When a team, especially the Blues, plays a full 200-foot game, it gives them the opportunity to dictate its pace, which slides the momentum in that team’s favor.
“I think it’s exactly what we thought it was going to be”, Elliott said.
“We’ll call them short plays, but they’re not small, they’re huge”, Backes said.
Logan Couture added a power-play goal and an empty-netter, before Tommy Wingels sealed it with another empty-net goal as the Sharks showed some rust after having six days off since beating Los Angeles in five games in the first round. The Blues were faced with the challenge of playing an emotional 7-game series, coming to a cold stop, and then trying to re-start again against a different opponent.
A Roussel penalty led to a first-period power-play goal for the Blues.
And if not for a couple of stellar plays from their captain (his big hit/sweet sauce combo on the Goligoski goal was #peakBenn), this thing would have been over right on time. “Game 1 is a long ways behind us right now”, Ruff said.
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Ward’s fourth career game-winning goal in the playoffs enabled San Jose to take a 1-0 lead in Western Conference series against the Predators. Lehtonen has been mostly reliable in the playoffs though, so Niemi likely will return to the bench for the start of Game 3. His first came from behind the net in Game 2 of the first-round series against Minnesota on a puck that ricocheted off a teammate’s skate and then hit Roussel’s, popping over the net and into the back of the goalie’s head before falling into the net…. If the Dallas Stars want to keep their run at a Stanley Cup alive, tomorrow will be a huge game in deciding that. If they can do that, the home crowd should give them the extra boost they need to close out both games at Scottrade, and hopefully propel them into their first round three appearance since 2001.
