First period goals from Ivan Barbashev and Tyler Bozak were enough for the St Louis Blues on Friday night as they upended the San Jose Sharks, 2-1, in Game 4 of the Western Conference Final.
Tyaler Bozak had a first period goal for Blues – file photo by Jack Lima
The win evens the best-of-seven series at 2-2.
Jordan Binnington made 29 saves for his 10th win of the playoffs.
“That’s a great honor obviously,” Binnington said. “I’m having a lot of fun back here playing with this team. They’re doing a great job. They limited their chances tonight. We played a complete game. I just tried to do my job.”
Tomas Hertl scored in the third period to make the final 13 minutes of the game a little more intense for the Blues.
“It was a tough first obviously,” San Jose defenseman Brent Burns said. “After that I think we battled back there, had some good looks. I think we got better. We have to have better. That’s a great team over there. Still looking for a solid 60 (minutes) I think.”
The series heads back to San Jose for Game 5 on Sunday.
“Obviously there’s different ways to handle that situation, and we did it perfect,” Vladimir Tarasenko said. “The atmosphere inside the locker room was good too. It’s not separate us, it’s keep us more together. What else can we do? We were down by one, and now we’re tied. We did what we planned to, and the next game will be really important for us.”
[WATCH: Sharks vs. Blues Game 4 highlights | Complete series coverage]
Martin Jones made 20 saves in the loss.
“Gave up two quick ones but we battled, we had our chances,” San Jose captain Joe Pavelski said. “We felt we sustained some attack for a while and came up a little short, but definitely room for improvement for sure.”
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