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You know the axiom of the NHL: teams need to find new levels to win the Stanley Cup.
Together, players have to dig deeper and deeper to improve their game. The Blues played again Monday night in San Jose to beat the Sharks 4-2 and even the Western Conference finals at one game each.
This allowed them to hope to continue to make their storybook work.
As you might expect, the Blues held up well against the Sharks to start the second game. Of course, they beat two nights after playing so horribly in the first match on Saturday night. It was automatic.
But the success they won later in the game – after the battle turned against them – was very impressive.
The blues back blues in the second period led to consecutive goals for Logan Couture. In the space of two minutes, their 2-0 lead is gone. A dramatic turn of events hit the team, such as a Dino Ciccarelli spear on the ribs or a counter-control of Derian Hatcher's kidneys.
The Blues could have buckled and give in. They could have allowed the Sharks to turn this change of course into a two-game no-one advantage as this playoff series of seven best-of-seven now went to Enterprise Center.
Instead, the Blues held on to survive the second period. Instead, they stood up to dominate the third, win extra rounds in sets, and take another character test.
"Our team did not panic," said Craig Berube, coach of the Blues, during a conference call on Tuesday morning. "We just stayed with that. We were not too frustrated. We knew we were still playing well. We made some mistakes, but we played well. "
Yes, let's talk about these mistakes. The first came on the numerical advantage. The Blues controlled the game with a 2-0 lead and were looking to score a goal.
But they were disheveled with the men's advantage, and the Sharks' aggressive penalty killers followed them. On the right wing, Blues winger David Perron handed the puck to defenseman Alex Pietrangelo on the blue line.
This power play unit tends to move the puck predictably, so Couture assumed that Pietrangelo would automatically send it to his left. Couture played this pass, stole and scored during a breakaway.
It was bad enough, but the Blues failed to make an entry into the offensive zone when the line was changed just as the Sharks penalty ended. The resulting business figure threw Couture for another clean break-in.
Once again, he has not missed. Suddenly the game was 2-2 and the Shark Tank was shaking.
Blues fans feared it was breaking point. They were waiting for San Jose to tilt the ice against goalkeeper Jordan Binnington and continue to score as in the opening game.
It could have condemned the Blues in this game and perhaps throughout the series. Returning to St. Louis with a 0-2 deficit in the playoffs would have been problematic for a team that does not play very well at home.
Instead, the Blues managed to regroup and regain their quarter-quarter intensity to keep the Sharks at bay. Binnington supported, reaffirming his resilience, and his teammates played brilliantly ahead of him.
"I thought they were playing a hell game," Sharks coach Pete DeBoer said at his press conference Monday night. "I thought that they had good legs, that they were well defended and that it was difficult for us, and that we did not work enough to create an offense."
The formula for the success of the Blues is not complicated: take it out of the defensive zone, push it deep into the offensive zone and shoot the puck at every opportunity.
"They just continued to stick around," Sharks winger Kevin Lebanc told reporters after the match.
"We lost two or three battles and that's the difference in the match," said striker Tomas Hertl. "The first game we dominated the 50-50. Today, they were better.
Bérubé downplayed the adjustments he and his staff had made during the match, such as changing defensive pairs and moving some pieces to the power play.
(Blues wingers Vladimir Tarasenko and Perron even changed sides on a men's advantage to be able to shoot faster and with better angles – imagine that!)
Bérubé also downplayed any tactical changes his staff would make for the third game, when the Blues can expect the Sharks to come back with great effort. San Jose has a lot of players who have won many games in the playoffs, so this team knows the exercise.
The Blues will have to play fast while remaining focused, not frenzied.
"You have to keep competing and playing hard. This is obviously an important part of the playoffs, "said Bérubé. "Just the difficult game and the powerful game. When you do not have the puck, the work ethic that is needed to get her back and be really good at defending. These adjustments are not, they are things that are needed every night in the playoffs to win hockey games.
"We're really going to focus on the competition and do the right things with the hockey puck, and when we do not have them, do the right things, check the state of mind, work ar recover. "
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