The Blues evened the Western Conference Finals 2-2 last night, allowing the series to head back to St. Louis for Game 5 in exactly the status I expected and preserving my ongoing thought that the team that wins Game 5 will win the series. David Backes didn’t take a shift in the second or third periods and Robby Fabbri played sparingly. Hopefully these are not significant injuries. You can find a video recap of the game
here.
The Blues dodged a bit of a bullet early in Game 4. Only 2 minutes into the game, Paul Martin beats Vladimir Tarasenko to the outside. Martin’s shot takes a very odd rebound and bounce and Jay Bouwmeester almost puts his clearing attempt into the Blues net. About 10 seconds later, the puck goes behind the Blues net and Troy Brouwer puts a big
hit on Thomas Hertl, taking the puck in the process. Brouwer looks like he made contact high and I’m surprised he didn’t get called for a penalty.
With about 15:20 left in the period, the DirectTv feed goes completely dark at my house and doesn’t come back until they are showing the blue line cameras during the review of the Blues power play goal. We miss seeing the Brent Burns tripping penalty and the Troy Brouwer goal on a one-timer from the slot thanks in large part to a great primary assist from Robby Fabbri. In what might be important later, DeBoer burns his timeout losing his challenge of the zone entry before the goal.
The Blues second goal of the game illustrates something I hope all are noticing. Robby Fabbri has been a master of offensive zone forechecking through pass and clearing interceptions. Fabbri reads and anticipates the clearing attempt by the Sharks’ left defensemen, stealing the puck. As he does, Backes comes to the front of the net. As Fabbri drops the puck to Jori Lehtera, Backes gets cross-checked and then slashed in the back of the leg from Brent Burns in just a taste of what is to come from Burns. The Lehtera shot is blocked but he follows up and slides a pass to Fabbri at the far post. Fabbri is robbed by a diving Martin Jones but Lehtera puts in the rebound. Lehtera showed a real nose for the net on the play and gets rewarded. In one of the mysteries of the universe, the Sharks official scorer decides to remove the assist from Fabbri on the play.
With a little under 7 minutes to play in the period, the puck is cleared by the Sharks’ blue line and Joel Edmundson takes a run at Logan Couture that is worthy of a penalty but is somehow not assessed one. When the play follows along, Tommy Wingels makes a late
hit from behind on Fabbri and is also not assessed a penalty. It’s pretty clear that the referees have lost control of the game and are going to “let them play”.
The referees’ loss of control is further evidenced in the last minute of the period when Marc-Edouard Vlasic is assessed a slashing penalty but Brent Burns should have been given two separate penalties, one for hitting Tarasenko in the side of the head and one for
sucker punching Tarasenko in the ribs.
On the opening power play of the 2nd period, Tarasenko has a quality scoring chance but can’t covert. He has had a few of these through the first 22 minutes of the game. Couture adds a delay of game penalty and late in the 5 on 3, Schwarz looks like he hits the post or maybe the outside of Jones’ skate.
About 5 minutes into the second, Burns
hits Brouwer from behind even though he doesn’t have the puck. Like Brouwer’s hit on Hertl, Burns does later make a play on the puck, but the hit was before the puck was there. Of course, this is yet another no call in this game. I guess some might like that they are at least being consistent?
While on the power play for a Kevin Shattenkirk interference call, Joe Thornton makes a terrible pass across the middle of the ice to no one. The ill advised pass creates a 2 on 1 and Kyle Brodziak roofs the Schwartz pass about 6 minutes into the period.
Less than 5 minutes later, the Blues line of Dmitri Jaskin, Kyle Brodziak and Magnus Paajarvi brings some great board work and forehecking, almost 30 seconds worth, before Jaskin slides the puck from behind the net to Brodziak for his second goal of the period. Coach DeBoer pulls Jones for James Reimer.
Less than 30 seconds later Tarasenko is high sticked again without a call and then another minute later Hertl shoots the puck into the net after the whistle earning only a roughing call in the ensuing scrum, not the original unsportsmanlike call that could have been made.
The Sharks applied some good pressure at the end of the second period with Lehtera saving a goal with a brilliant stick check with about a minute left.
About 50 seconds into the 3rd period, Patrick Berglund fails to get the puck deep. Later on in the play, Colton Parayko gets completely lost in the defensive zone being out between the hash marks, leaving Joe Pavelski uncontested at the far slot. Thornton makes a good pass that Pavelski easily guides into the net. Three minutes later, Joe Ward takes a delay of game penalty and Troy Brouwer deflects the right point shot from Alexander Steen past Reimer.
Chris Tierney scored about 7 minutes into the period on a
goal that I am surprised counted as Wingels’ stick appears to push Allen’s right leg, causing him to slide out and leave the net wide open.
Midway through the third period, Allen makes his
best save of the game on Thornton. Pietrangelo added a seeing-eye, bouncing empty net goal with 4:21 left. Melker Karlsson later gets credit for Joel Edmundson’s own goal.
The referees end the game on a weak slash call on Lehtera after letting the much more violent and wild stick swing of Roman Polak went unpenalized on the prior shift.
ETA - Just saw this for the first time - the other
sucker punch from the game.
Game 4 Notes
- Someone might be reading my blogs, Steen didn’t take a faceoff in the game.
- Lehtera flipped from last game and was only 23% in the faceoff circle.
- Berglund, Tarasenko and Edmundson were the only minus Blues players.
- Pietrangelo had 4 blocked shots and only played 26 minutes.
- Again, no Sharks forward played 20 minutes.
- Brent Burns had 4 giveaways and played almost 24 minutes.
- Blues power play was 2 of 4 and penalty kill was 5 for 5. (Jammer key)
- Allen was over 91% while neither Sharks goalie was over 86%. (Jammer key)
- Pavelski, Couture, Thornton and Burns were -6 with only 1 goal. (Jammer key)
- Fabbri had 1 assist (really 2) in less than 10 minutes of ice. (Jammer key)
Quotes of interest
- DeBoer - smiling - “I’m sure Hitch will tell you he made all types of great adjustments and every one of them worked tonight. Hats off to him. Thanks.”
- Hitchcock – “We weren’t playing for Ells. We were relying on him, and there’s a big difference.”
- Hitchcock on Backes – “He had pom poms out. He was cheerleading. He was doing a good job.”
- Steen on forechecking adjustments – “Yeah, our new plan. It’s up to you guys to dissect it.”
Game 5 Notes
Coach Ken Hitchcock is going back to Jake Allen as the Game 5 starter. I would expect the forwards to remain the same barring any injury replacements. Your guess is as good as mine as to whether we will see Robert Bortuzzo or Joel Edmundson.
NHL Champions for Charity
In what I hope becomes a Hockeybuzz tradition, Hockeybuzz Sharks blogger
Steve Palumbo and I placed a wager on the series. If the Blues win, Steve has agreed to make a donation to
Covenant House Missouri (@covenanthousemo on twitter) whose mission is to empower youth who are disconnected to design their own path from homelessness to opportunity. Thanks to my twitter typo, if the Blues win, I'll be donating to Safe Connections (@SafeConnections on twitter). If the Sharks win, I will donate to the
Hydrocephalus Association (@HydroAssoc on twitter) whose mission is to connect individuals to larger communities that can provide support and understanding, to educate national and state policymakers, the medical community, and the general population, and to advance treatment and eventually find a cure for Hydrocephalus.
I hope that our wagers will inspire players and fans to pledge donations for each win their team makes in the NHL playoffs. For the players, it would be great if they would agree to donate a small percentage of their playoff bonuses to charity while fans could donate an amount per win, perhaps both upping it if their team won the Stanley Cup. As a simple example, a player could pledge 0.25% per win with a bonus 1% if they win the Cup, bringing their total to 5%.
So far this playoff season, the Blues victory over the Stars has meant that
Bill Meltzer is donating to
Safe Connections (@SafeConnections on twitter).
It’s a great day for hockey.
St Louis Blues Blogger • 
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