In St Louis, it was more like cleaning up the floor in a beer hall littered with peanut shells and saw dust.
Like so much detritus on the floor, the Colorado Avalanche swept aside the Blues on Sunday afternoon, 5-2, to take the series 4-0.
“It was probably the toughest game for us,” the Avs’ Mikko Rantanen said. “I think we still played pretty well. I think like Game 2 (a 6-3 win), we weren’t really happy how we played. But I think last two games we wrapped up the series really well and found a way to play kind of grinding hockey, so everybody knows we have the speed and the skill. But in the playoffs, sometimes you have to grind wins too, and I think that’s what we did last two games.”
Philipp Grubauer made 18 saves to get the win.
“I think it’s huge to get a couple days, but most important how we played every game, 60 minutes, every shift,” Grubauer said. “Every, every small detail matters in the playoffs. I think we found a way to do that in every game and that’s going to be the key moving forward too.”
The Avs will face either the Vegas Golden Knights or Minnesota Wild in the second round.
Vladimir Tarasenko scored both goals for the Blues, who at least kept it close late into the third period.
“To tell you honestly, I’m not ready for these questions right now,” Tarasenko said. “To answer all of those is there’s no excuses. I can [say] whatever I want to say, and say like we don’t fight enough, but it is what it is. This is embarrassing. [It’s] always hard to lose in the playoffs, especially like this. There [are] no words, that much you can see.”
Leading 3-2, the Avs potted two empty-net goals, one from Nathan MacKinnon (power play) at 19:04 and one from Valeri Nichushkin to stretch the lead and final score to 5-2.
“They were better than us,” Blues coach Craig Berube said. “You get beat four straight, they were better than us.”
After Tarasenko gave the Blues a 1-0 lead, Brandon Saad tied it up off the power play..
The Avs also got goals from Gabriel Landeskog and Rantanen.
Jordan Binnington made 29 saves in the loss.
You must be logged in to post a comment.