Ducks vs. Predators tickets for Game 6 start at $34 – a bargain for a Stanley Cup sixth game.
Advertisement
The Chicago Blackhawks’ season has come to an end with a 3-2 loss to the St. Louis Blues in Game 7 on Monday night. For our keys to Game 7, look here.
Maybe there was no pronouncement of a Blues win, but maybe they should have asked Troy Brouwer, the former Hawks winger who won a Cup in Chicago in 2010, and, in a piece of poetic justice got the game victor in the third when he wildly shovelled a backhand past Corey Crawford after he’d first hit the post as he took a feed from Robby Fabbri.
“We put ourselves in an bad spot a little while ago”, Chicago coach Joel Quenneville said Sunday.
“We had a sniff there”, Quenneville said.
This is St. Louis’ first advancement to the second round since 2012, when they beat the San Jose Sharks in five games, but then lost four straight games to the Los Angeles Kings.
There was a palpable tension in the St. Louis dressing room.
Jori Lehtera scored his first career playoff goal and rookie defenseman Colton Parayko also scored for the Blues, who avoided another inglorious finish. The first was during the 2015 Bridgestone NHL Winter Classic, where he scored with 12.9 seconds remaining in the third period to guide the Washington Capitals to a 3-2 victory.
Chicago has scored 10 second-period goals in the 2016 playoffs – most of any team in any period. It was a heck of run for Jonathan Toews, Patrick Kane & Co., and they showed the heart of a champion fighting until the end.
“I heard post-post and I thought just get back as soon as I could”, Pietrangelo said. It’s hard to put into words just how spectacular this opening-round series was. “Obviously not the outcome we were looking for”, said Kane.
But just as they had come back from a two-game deficit in the series and a two-goal deficit in Game 6, the Blackhawks came back to tie this one.
“They’re fighting for their lives, and we knew that we were going to get their best”, Ducks center Ryan Getzlaf said. “I don’t think what I’d say would hold much weight”. “It was close the whole way”. However, at first he missed the rebound, unable to angle his stick flat on the ice, his blade passed overtop the puck ; but Brouwer managed to try a third time and backhanded it along the ice into the net before a Hawk defenceman, or Crawford, could reach him. The Blues will need to repeat that magic here in game seven if they want to play another game this season. St. Louis is 8-9 in winner-take-all games all-time (includes all series).
Advertisement
These are two teams that defend by trying to possess the pucks, so Blues Ken Hitchcock said the area he’ll be watching closely is which of these teams is doing a better job exiting the defensive zone with control. “I don’t know if it’s a milestone”. Per Elias, it tied the fastest goal to begin a Game 7 in Blues history (also Martin Rucinsky in 2003 CQF at the Vancouver Canucks). Seabrook hammered a shot from the point that hit traffic in front and then hit both posts, improbably staying out of the net and leaving the Blues in front. The St. Louis Blues took what looked like 2 obvious penalties that weren’t called, and heading into the intermission the Blues had a lot of momentum.
