St. Louis forward Robby Fabbri became the youngest player in National Hockey League history to score three points in a Game 7 contest Wednesday night, as the Blues hammered Dallas 6-1 to secure a place in the Western Conference Final.
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A dominant St Louis Blues crushed the Dallas Stars 6-1 on Wednesday to seal their place in the NHL Stanley Cup Western Conference final.
The Blues now await the victor of Thursday’s Game 7 between the Nashville Predators and San Jose Sharks.
David Backes, their captain, and Patrik Berglund also had goals for the Blues, who won their third road game in this series. The final St. Louis goal went in to an empty net.
Fabbri is the youngest player in Blues history to score in a Game 7. The NHL saw that the Blues can be that sort of ultra-marketable team, even if it hadn’t gone on a recent, deep postseason run.
The team that survives will meet the victor of tomorrow’s Game 7 between Nashville and San Jose. Even though the game was a blowout, he still made some huge saves when the game was close, including this toe save early in the second period when the Stars almost made it 3-1 with a lot of time to play. “I think maybe it’s on me”. But now they need a third win this month at the American Airlines Center, which hadn’t even opened the last time the Stars hosted a Game 7 – on May 27, 2000, when St. Louis coach Ken Hitchcock was still coaching the Stars, and they beat Colorado at Reunion Arena in the Western Conference final. Nashville and San Jose play their deciding Game 7 tonight, Thursday, May 12 at 9:00 PM ET.
The team has taken it on their shoulders to provide better play in front of him, something they didn’t do for a five minute stretch of play Monday that put them in a 3-0 hole. The Blues’ second goal Wednesday was negated after a successful offside challenge by Dallas.
Then, Berglund gave the visitors a 3-0 lead with his fourth goal of the playoffs with four seconds remaining in the first period.
Hitchcock would not commit to putting Elliott back in goal for Game 7, saying he wanted to sleep on the decision, but Allen seemed convinced the Blues would turn back to Elliott.
There was St. Louis’ Brian Elliott, who entered this decisive game two days removed from being pulled during a forgettable Game 6 performance.
As for Lehtonen, all he can do is learn from what went wrong in Game 7 and hopefully use this experience to be better in the future, at least that’s what he’s hoping.
All the pulling of the goalies meant, Ruff said, was that it was a close, tension-filled series.
Lehtonen is 6-2 in the playoffs with a.908 save percentage and 2.58 goals-against average.
“I just try to stay as relaxed as I can and just follow the puck and not try to play it any other way than I’ve done last 59 and a half minutes”, Lehtonen said.
“We can just flip the script and say how well Elliott played, and just change the name to Lehtonen now”, Stars coach Lindy Ruff said.
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Dallas Stars goalie Antti Niemi (31) reacts and takes off his helmet after giving up a goal to St. Louis Blues right wing Troy Brouwer, not shown, during the second period of Game 7 of the NHL hockey Stanley Cup Western Conference semifinals Wednesday, May 11, 2016, in Dallas. “We knew they were going to take more risks”.
