Less than 20 seconds later, Vernon Fiddler gave himself a birthday present by making it 2-0. The goal really starts as a result of a poor regrouping by the Blues after Kevin Shattenkirk rotates deep in the offensive zone. As the play is coming back, Shattenkrik hesitates in the neutral zone and starts to pressure the puck on the wall, putting all four blues players around their blue line near the wall. Both D are now stuck on the same side. As a result, Elliott has nowhere to play the dump in as he is on an island with a forechecker. He puts the puck in a decent spot but the Blues lose that board battle. More importantly, Shattenkirk is caught looking and does not mark up Fiddler for an easy redirect goal for which Elliott had little chance. See longer footage that shows the whole play here. With that the Stars are up 2-0 less than 5 minutes into the period.
As the first period is winding down, Troy Brouwer takes a bad offensive zone cross checking penalty behind the play. About 30 seconds into the power play, Jamie Benn holds and takes down Scottie Upshall to prevent a 3 on 2 but the foul is judged not to warrant a call by the referee. Alex Pietrangelo still has a golden opportunity to hit Kyle Brodziak for a breakaway but a combination of a good play by John Klingberg and a poor pass by Pietrangelo create a turn over and a 4 on 3 coming back the other way. Jay Bouwmeester falls down leaving Upshall to defend Jason Spezza and try and cover a pass. Spezza gets a clean shot from first hash mark between the circles and puts another goal high glove side, making it 3-0 and chasing Brian Elliott from the game.
The Blues dominated the rest of the game outshooting the stars 28 to 7. Less than 8 minutes into the third period, Alexander Steen cut the lead to 2, scoring on a rebound of a Robert Bortuzzo shot. The Blues had possession in the Stars zone for a long time before the goal. Jason Demers and Kris Russell were on the ice for a shift of 2:15 before the goal.
The Blues cut the lead to 3-2 with about 11 minutes remaining in the 3rd period on a great pass from Jori Lehtera to Patrick Berglund who cut strong to the net and put the puck around Kari Lehtonen. The Blues had a number of quality chances that were all turned aside by Lehtonen but none was better than Jaden Schwartz’s one timer from the low slot with 24 seconds left in the game.
Overall, puck luck, a couple of favorable calls and, more importantly, goaltending determined this game. The Blues need to dig deep and find another road. They need to play a full 60 minutes of how they have played the last two 2nd periods.
As to potential lineup changes, Brian Elliott looks to get the start. Tyler Seguin is still out. It’s anyone’s guess as to whether Ott, Reaves or Jaskin will be in the lineup, same with Bortuzzo or Edmundson. Note that all of them came off the ice at the same time today just to keep everyone guessing. I’d guess Ott on the forward side. FYI, Brian Elliott came to the rink yesterday to stop pucks even though I believe it was optional. No wonder his teammates like him so much. On the Stars side, Jamie Benn didn’t practice today but it was an optional skate. Of course, he was the only Star not to practice.
In relation to Jammer’s keys, the loss was expected given the Blues lost on special teams and in the goaltending battle.
Game 6 notes - Carl Gunnarsson played less than Bortuzzo – 10:21 to 11:45 - Kyle Brodziak and Upshall played less than 5 minutes - Dmitri Jaskin played less than 6 minutes. - The Blues’ point players need to at least some of the time shoot quick off the pass. - Patrick Berglund played one of the best games I have ever seen him play. - Jason Spezza only played 13:20, 4th least among Stars forwards
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.
It’s a great day for hockey.