The Blues are one win after the Sharks' 5-0 win in Game 5 | Morning skating



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SAN JOSE – The Blues are one win away from their first trip to the Stanley Cup final since 1970 after a dominant 5-0 win over the Sharks in the fifth game of the Western Conference final on Sunday. SAP Center.

The Blues will have a chance to seal the trip Tuesday at the Enterprise Center.

"It's always tough against a really good team like San Jose," coach Craig Berube said. "It's going to be hard, we'll be at our best for 60 minutes, that's for sure."

"We are in a good situation right now," said striker Pat Maroon. "We have to stick, though, this team is relentless over there, it's a good hockey team and they have very good players out there who want it as badly as we do. way to fight and do what we are capable of doing, it's just dictating the game, play our hockey style, stay the course, stay out of the matter and just find a way to play it down , turn them down, play them down and play our game, as I said, but this is an exciting time and we need to find a way to defeat that victory and prepare for the sixth game. "

Jordan Binnington recorded his first shutout in the playoffs, stopping the 21 shots he faced, including more than half in the first period. The Blues dominated San Jose 40-21, with 36 of those shots in the second and third periods.

The Blues opened the game in the second period by being led by Jaden Schwartz (San Francisco) 20-6 and then by Vladimir Tarasenko, the first-ever playoff playoff in the team's history. Oskar Sundqvist marked the start of the first period of play and Schwartz added his second goal of the game early in the fourth period in a power play to five against three and completed his second hat trick at the playoffs when he hit the pass in Tarasenko. 3:58 to go. This is the 12th goal of the Schwartz playoffs, the second-most important in the team's history, behind the 13 scored by Brett Hull in 1991. It also means that Schwartz scored more than goals in the playoffs, 12 in 18 games, only in the regular season, 11.

There was a hat on the ice to celebrate Schwartz's feat.

"We've already seen (Schwartz)," said Bérubé. "He has been a fairly consistent artist over the years, it was a sabbatical year for him in the regular season, but the guy continues to work hard, nothing changes with his attitude, he continues in this way and continues to work and wears his fruits now, he's been a very good performer for us in the playoffs. "

At the end of the match, the Sharks had four players injured in the locker room and two others who had been kicked out of the match after Micheal Haley went on the ice, apparently for the sole purpose of picking on Alex Pietrangelo. Evander Kane, who had a 10-minute misconduct with 2:47 to go.

"We held our game," said defender Joel Edmundson. "We knew they were going to be tough, they had a good first half, we weathered the storm, I thought our second and third periods were really good, we just played tonight, well defensively, we We did not spend much time in our D zone. I thought we played a full 200-foot match. "

Tarasenko was caught up from behind by Brent Burns with 13:07 to go in the second and on the next shot, he started by going wide to his right, then came back and shot high for the glove side of the goalkeeper Martin Jones – a Blues spot have taken aim to all series – to score.

It was only the second penalty kick in the playoffs for the Blues, the other coming from Jimmy Roberts in 1968 against Minnesota and Cesare Maniago. It was a failure. In the regular season, Tarasenko made four shootout shootouts. He was 0 for 4.

The Blues dominated San Jose 20-6 during the period and had many more opportunities to score since it seemed like they were going to increase in advance, but they could not .

Jaden Schwartz extended his lead to 2-0 on a goal at 3:05 of the period. Tarasenko fired a shot from the left that deviated from Logan Couture of San Jose. The puck still went to Jones, who pushed him back, but to Schwartz, who had an open corner of the net to score his 10th playoff goal.

The Blues had a power play four minutes later in the second when Alexander Steen took a high stick, but he was quickly halved when Tyler Bozak was called for hanging. The Blues killed the four against four – San Jose dominated those in this series – and did not do much in the rest of the power play.

Oskar Sundqvist maintained the momentum of the fourth row with a goal of giving the Blues a 1-0 advantage after the first period. The fourth row – Sundqvist, Ivan Barbashev and Alexander Steen – score goals in four consecutive games.

The Sharks had most opportunities early – although each team had a shot on goal in the first four minutes. Evander Kane of San Jose scored just 12 seconds into the match, and Brayden Schenn scored for about four minutes.

It was the Blues who scored the first goal. The Blues could have had more chances, but some games scored ended with an extra pass rather than a shot.

Erik Karlsson, whose status for the game was high, played a puck behind his net. His teammate Brenden Dillon spread his legs to let the puck out and get the boards out, but if the pass was for someone else, there was no one there. Sundqvist skated on it and shot Martin Jones for his fourth playoff goal and the second in the series.

The Sharks had a numerical advantage in the first game after Jay Bouwmeester's call to delay the game. San Jose scored four shots on goal within two minutes, but failed to score. For the period, the Sharks dominated the 11-4 Blues.

The teams enter the game even to two wins each. When the finals or semifinals of the conference are tied 2-2, the winner of the fifth match has an all time record in the 19-8 series (70.3%).

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