Blues send Blackhawks to brink of elimination with Game 4 win
It was going to be different this time. The St. Louis Blues were going to get the goaltending they needed, the scoring they needed and play with the confidence and poise necessary to defeat their dynastic tormentors, the Chicago Blackhawks, in a divisional semifinal series.
If you didn’t believe this was possible before, you have to believe it is after Game 4.
The Blues skated out of Chicago with two road victories, the second coming in a 4-3 heart-pounder on Tuesday night. They hold a 3-1 advantage, with three shots at sending the defending champion Blackhawks home in the opening round.
It’s not just that they’re winning, it’s how they’re winning.
Brian Elliott, the goalie who couldn’t carry a team in a postseason series, stopped 39 Blackhawks shots in Game 4 and entered the game with a .963 save percentage.
Those big goals that eluded the Blues every postseason are now being delivered by names like Tarasenko, Schwartz, Steen and Backes.
The confidence that escaped them for years, they now possess in bulk. They’ve outscored the Blackhawks 4-1 in the third period of their victories, and they’ve taken the physical game to them in each contest.
It’s not just that the Blackhawks are losing, it’s how they’re losing.
The team’s secondary scoring is non-existent. Their penalty kill, a season-long concern, has provided a series-long boost to the Blues. And the discipline and poise that’s been their hallmark in winning three Cups under Joel Quenneville has noticeably disintegrated in this season, from untimely turnovers to Patrick Kane’s double-minor that led to the Game 3 loss to Andrew Shaw’s inexplicable penalty with two minutes left in Game 4 that basically iced it for the Blues.
The fact is that were it not for a pair of favorable coach’s challenges in Game 2, this series might already be over.
Game 4 was a wild affair, that included goalie Corey Crawford roughing up the Blues’ Robby Fabbri after a collision in the second period.
The Blues broke a 2-2 tie in the third period with two goals that will haunt Blackhawks defenseman Trevor van Riemsdyk.
With Duncan Keith in the penalty box for holding, Kevin Shattenkirk had the puck at the top of the zone. David Backes made a power move to the net, skating through van Riemsdyk, who tried to clear the puck after Shattenkirk shot it. Instead, the Blackhawks defenseman sent it right to Jaden Schwartz, who barely missed bouncing the puck off of Backes’ head and sent it past Crawford at 1:36.
At 4:46, the Blues struck again, and again it was courtesy of van Riemsdyk. After Michal Rozsival failed to keep the puck in the attacking zone, he chased it to the neutral zone, passing it to van Riemsdyk. His return pass was knocked out of the air by Alex Steen, who broke in on Crawford and scored his first of the playoffs.
Keith got one back, firing from the blue line and getting a friendly deflection off a Blues player past Elliott at 14:40.
Shaw took a silly interference penalty with just over two minutes remaining, and the Blackhawks pulled their goalie to make it 5-on-5 again.
It appeared that Steen had capped the game with an empty-netter, but it was overturned after an NHL-triggered video review that determined Paul Stastny was offside. The Blackhawks, however, couldn’t get the equalizer.
So now we’ll see what these Blackhawks have left.
They haven’t looked like themselves at times this season, and haven’t in this series. Through three championships, they’ve seen nearly every series scenario, been backed up against every wall.
There’s a lot of pride in that locker room. The Blues have written every chapter of this postseason epic to perfection, but this isn’t going to be an easy book to close.
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Greg Wyshynski is a writer for Yahoo Sports. Contact him at [email protected] or find him on Twitter. His book, TAKE YOUR EYE OFF THE PUCK, is available on Amazon and wherever books are sold.
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