In St Louis, the Blues made easy work of Game 6m five different skaters scored in a 5-1 win over the Minnesota Wild.
The victory sends the Blues to the second round of the Stanley Cup Playoffs in the Western Conference.
“It was a tough battle,” the Blues’ Tyler Bozak said. “That’s a very good team over there. It’s kind of a shame we played in the first round of the playoffs. It was two of the top teams in the West and they deserve a lot of credit for the season they had. That was a really tough battle for us. Every game seemed like could have gone any way with a bounce here or there. We were lucky enough to come out on the winning end. That’s a great test for us and should prepare us well for the next round.”
Jordan Binnington made 25 saves in the St Louis win.
“We had a good first period and kind of weathered the storm,” Binnington said. “They came out hard and they were playing desperate. I think we matched that, and we came out in the second period and played really hard.
“It’s a hard-fought series against a team that comes at you pretty hard, and we did a great job. We had guys step up, just a great team effort and it’s good to be at this point. Now we’re looking forward to the next challenge.”
Matt Dumba was the lone striker for the Wild, his goal came in the third period after the Blues had built a 4-0 lead through the first two periods.
“It [stinks], right,” Wild coach Dean Evason said. “They loved playing together. There’s no individuals, there’s no [complaining] on the bench, there’s no, ‘I should get this, I should be on the power play.’ They played for each other and that’s what’s so disappointing. It’s disappointing we didn’t win tonight and we didn’t win in the first round of the playoffs. When you’re that close, you’re like, ‘What’s going to happen now? Are we all going to be together or not?’ It’s tough.”
In the last seven postseasons, the Wild have advanced out of the first round, only twice.
Nick Leddy scored for St Louis in the first period to give them a 1-0 lead.
“The first goal was obviously big,” St. Louis’ David Perron said. “It kind of took some pressure off there. It allowed us to go out and kind of realized what we had to do better and play better in the second period. We had maybe a few too many turnovers in the first.”
The Blues’ Ryan O’Reilly and Tyler Bozak scored in the middle frame to push the lead to 3-0.
“We knew it was going to be tough to close these guys out,” O’Reilly said. “A lot of emotion coming home, the building was electric. We were just kind of caught watching a bit [in the first period] and obviously ‘Binner’ did an amazing job shutting the door there early. ‘Leds’ makes a great play and a great goal and that just kind of helped us to kind of settle down and build our game after them kind of thinking they outplayed us going into the second. We knew if we started getting our game together, things would come and that’s exactly what happened. It was good from there.”
Vladimir Tarasenko added a marker before the end of the second period for a 4-0 advantage.
“It was exactly what we were looking for; the first period was fantastic,” Evason said. “We did everything that we could ask. We played right, played hard, got chances, just didn’t score. They got that goal and we just uncharacteristically didn’t handle it very well. Likely the difference obviously in the game.”
St Louis’ Colton Parayko scored an empty-net goal in the third for the 5-1 final.
Cam Talbot made 22 saves in the Wild’s loss.
“I was doing everything I could to stay ready,” Talbot said. “You don’t want to come in in an elimination game, but you still want the opportunity to play during the playoffs. They gave me the opportunity. Just wasn’t good enough.”
It was his first start in the series.
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