It’s never easy easy repeating anything.
But the St Louis Blues are making it even more difficult on themselves to repeat as Stanley Cup Champions.
On Friday night, Bo Horvat struck for his second goal of the game with 5:55 gone in extra time to give the Vancouver Canucks a 4-3 win in Game 2 and a 2-0 series lead over St Louis.
“It was kind of a scramble behind our net and noticed that one of their defensemen was back there,” Horvat said. “As soon as I saw [Quinn Hughes] come out of the pile with the puck, I just decided to take off. It was a heck of a play by Hughesy to get it to me, and luckily it went in.”
The game was sent to over time when Jaden Schwartz was credited with the game-tying goal with just under seven seconds left in regulation; the puck deflected off his leg and into the net.
Jacob Markstrom made 34 saves to get the win.
“It’s definitely a good response by the guys,” the Canucks’ Tanner Pearson said. “… To let the late one in, it could have taken the wind out of us, but we regrouped in the room, came out strong, and finished it off.”
The Blues needed a two-goal rally just to force the extra session; they trailed 1-3 heading to the late stages of the third period.
Sammy Blais got them within one goal before the last seconds goal.
“We had a lot of noise last year and look at what we did,” the Blues’ Alex Pietrangelo said. “It’s a new year, obviously. We don’t want to keep going back to last year, but the core of this group went through that together and we know how to bounce back from these things. We did tonight. I thought we played a good game, and more of that I think we’ll find success.”
Elias Pettersson and Pearson also scored for Vancouver.
Ryan O’Reilly scored to cut the Canucks’ early 2-0 lead in half.
“We showed good resilience sticking with it, finding a way to get that (tying) goal,” O’Reilly said. “I think we went into OT confident that we were going to make it happen, and it’s one bad little break. That’s the way it is. Sometimes that happens. Sometimes we’re on the other end of it. But we’re putting this behind us, focus on the next game.”
The Canucks were 2-for-3 on the power play.
[WATCH: All Canucks vs. Blues highlights]
made 21 saves in the loss.”There was a lot of good things, but we’ve got to limit our mistakes and we’ve got to kill penalties better, or just kill them off, and I think we’ll be in better shape,” Blues head coach Craig Berube said. “It’s adversity right now. We’ve just got to fight through it and win a game.”
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