Follow @stlgoalie The Blues ended their four game, Game 5 losing streak and improved their road playoff record to 4-2 and pushed the Stars to the brink of elimination with a 4-1 victory yesterday afternoon. A video recap of the game can be seen here.
The Blues opened the scoring six minutes into the 1st period. Robby Fabbri made a brilliant pass off the end boards behind the Stars net to Troy Brouwer at the right post. Brouwer’s tough angle shot goes off either the outside of the net or Kari Lehtonen and rebounds out to Kevin Shattenkirk at the right point. Shattenkirk feeds the puck to Fabbri who tries to pass the puck back to Brouwer but his pass goes off Brett Ritchie and into the net.
The Stars almost evened the score with about 10:45 left in the period when a shot from Johnny Oduya from the left point missed the net but bounced off the end wall so hard it almost hit Elliott in the back and went into the net. The Patrick Lalime flashback was painful but luckily only a flashback not a re-enactment. Unfortunately, less than a minute later, the Stars evened the score.
With about 11 minutes gone, Colton Parayko failed to get the puck out near the blue line, allowing Vernon Fiddler to come out of the scrum on the side wall and slide a pass to Alex Goligoski between the face-off circles. Goligoski blasted the shot into the top corner of the net over Elliott’s trapper as Elliott’s positioning was a bit too far to his right, though it may not have mattered due to the quality of the shot. Most probably didn’t notice but immediately after the goal, Parayko stick tapped the back of Elliott’s pants before he pushed the puck back to center ice. He recognized his poor play. Even though this was easily Parayko’s worst period in the playoffs and Edmundson and Gunnarsson weren’t playing very well either, the Blues still ended the 1st period tied 1-1.
The Blues came out in the 2nd period and played easily their best 2nd period of the playoffs and maybe their best period of the entire playoffs outshooting the Stars 11-6 and outscoring them 2-0. The Blues took the lead midway through the period on the 1st career playoff goal of Dmitri Jaskin. Jaskin started the play with some wonderful work along the wall in the corner. His forecheck kept pressure and eventually led to the puck coming out to Jay Bouwmeester at the left point. Bouwmeester was trying to get the puck to a streaking Jaskin in the slot. The pass was tipped by Jamie Benn but Jaskin got it anyway. Kari Lehtonen did the splits to make a strong 1st save but Jaskin roofed the rebound into the goal net camera.
With a little over 2 minutes left in the 2nd period, Fabbri had the puck at the edge of the left circle and feathered a great pass to Paul Stastny in the slot at the far post. Stastny one touched a pass back to Brouwer at the near post. Brouwer nearly fanned on the shot at the empty net but got just enough to put it past Lehtenon, giving the Blues a two goal lead to end the period.
The Stars dominated the third period, outshooting the Blues 12-3 but Elliott stood tall. Elliott seemed to make a statement about slamming the door shut only 4 minutes into the period when he made a brilliant save sequence on Cody Eakin at the left post, stopping his one-timer and the rebound. Paul Stastny added an empty net goal with less than 2 minutes left though it took the Blues 5 shot attempts to hit the empty net.
Let’s take a look at Jammer’s Keys Timely Goaltending Elliott delivered on this key yet again, keeping the game tied in the 1st period and protecting the two goal lead early in the 3rd period, pushing his playoff save percentage over 93%.
Contain he Stars Big 4 Benn, Patrick Sharp and Jason Spezza were a combined -5 with only 1 assist and a combined 3 shots on goal. Mission accomplished.
Special Teams Neither team scored a power play goal in the game with the Blues killing both 3rd period penalties.
Rookies While Parayko and Joel Edmundson struggled in the first period, both seemed to settle down and improve as the game went on. Parayko played almost 19 minutes while Edmundson almost hit 13 minutes. While Fabbri only played 12 minutes, he played another strong game and contributed a goal and an assist and was directly responsible for plays that led to the goals.
Playoff notes - Braden Holtby is just over a 1.5 GAA and just under a 95% save percentage. - Matt Murray is just under 2 in GAA and just under 94% in save percentage. - Jamie Benn is leading the league in playoff points but his average this round is ½ of last round. - While Jamie Benn leads in total points, he does not lead in points per game. - If the Isles win today, all 4 series will be at 3-2. - I hope some of you watched the 3 OTs of the Preds/Sharks – very entertaining.
NHL Champions for Charity In what I hope becomes a hockeybuzz tradition, Bill Meltzer and I placed a wager on the series. If the Blues win, Bill has agreed to make a donation to Safe Connections (@SafeConnections on twitter) whose mission is to reduce the impact and incident of relationship violence and sexual assault through education, crisis intervention, and counseling services. If the Stars win, I will donate to Snider Hockey ( @SniderHockey on twitter) whose mission is to build lives and unite communities, helping educate young people to succeed in the game of life.
I'm going to work on starting NHL Champion for Charity which I hope will get 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%. I likely won't get any traction on this until next year if ever but at least wanted to put the idea out there now.
Happy Mother's Day to all.
It’s a great day for hockey.