ST LOUIS, Mo – Facing elimination, the St. Louis Blues had to do everything they could Tuesday night to remain alive in the 2009 Stanley Cup Playoffs.
Down three games to zero to the Vancouver Canucks, the Blues would have to put the bad breaks behind them and find ways to score on Roberto Luongo and take the series to a fifth game. The first period proved to be more of the same for this series as four minors were handed out for a total of eight minutes. The Blues drew a two minute minor when David Backes received a high sticking call at 2:26 to open the scoring sheet. Moments later, Vancouver would take themselves off the power play via a Steve Bernier interference call at 2:48. While the four-on-four situation would yield no result, a mere three minutes later, Kyle Wellwood would score the opening goal of the game to give the Canucks a 1-0 lead that would stand through the first intermission.
When the puck dropped on the second period Alexandre Burrows would find himself picking up a high sticking penalty only to come out of the box moment later to score Vancouver’s second mark of the game. Holding a 2-0 lead the Canucks would go on the power play as Dan Hinote was penalized for tripping at 11:03 to no avail. The Blues would continue to show why they have one of the top penalty killing units this season by shutting down the advantage and scoring seconds after the power play ended when BarretJackman set up Brad Boyes for his second goal of the series to put St. Louis down 2-1. Young phenom David Perron would prove why everyone in North America should know his name at 16:54 when Backes would feed him his first playoff goal of his career tying the game at two all. With the score tied going into the third period, it would be no doubt that there would be fireworks as the Blues face elimination on home ice and their season coming down to a single period. As the seconds ticked away, each team returned shots on goal and the puck was stopped from time to time, as the Blues season continued to wane down. Luongo and Chris Mason put on a goaltending clinic throughout the third period as each goalie made multiple saves in what was a duel of refusal to blink. Luongo turned away eleven shots on goal as the Blues fired one after another upon net. Not to be outdone, Mason stopped ten Vancouver shots to keep the Blues season alive as the game continued into overtime. Alexander Steen did all he could in the overtime period, peppering numerous shots to no avail as Luongo continued to frustrate the Blues. The Canucks handed the Blues multiple power play opportunities that St. Louis never could capitalize on despite a multitude of shots on net. Despite placing twice as many shots on net, and out-skating the Canucks as they had all series; this was just another game where Luongo made the difference. Burrows finally ended it as placed a perfect shot to beat Chris Mason with 0:19 left in the overtime period as the Canucks swept the Blues four games to zero. Thanks to Burrows’ goal and Luongo’s net minding the clock struck midnight and the Gateway City was stuck singing the Blues.
Contact john.strathman@prohockeynews.com
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