'It's what you play for' Relentless Blues batter Hellebuyck again to set up Game 7

ST. LOUIS -- Connor Hellebuyck would just as soon never return to the city of St. Louis for the rest of his days on this Earth.

The St. Louis Blues had their backs against the wall in the Stanley Cup Playoffs series coming into Friday night’s Game 6 at Enterprise Center. A loss would have ended the Blues season, while a win extended it to Sunday night in Winnipeg.

Though nervous energy permeated the building in the first period, the Blues pushed through it and proceeded to carry on the newfound tradition of rattling Hellebuyck to his core, firing a four-pack of goals past the Vezina finalist in the second period.

The onslaught chased Hellebuyck from the ice for a third straight game at Enterprise Center as the Blues won 5-2.

In his three games in St. Louis during this series, Hellebuyck allowed 16 goals on 66 shots for a save percentage of just .758.

For the second home game in a row, the Blues didn’t necessarily race out to a furious start--Game 3 was the only game in which they saw that furious push from the drop of the puck. But sticking with their principles to ultimately find their game worked wonders after a bit of a sluggish beginning to Game 4.

The Blues were able to do it again on Friday, taking a tentative first period and getting out of it under satisfactory circumstances.

“I did not like the start of our first eight to 10 minutes,” Blues coach Jim Montgomery said. “And then we started to come after that goal.”

With the Blues facing elimination in the event of a loss, it seemed that every play was made in the early going like they were all too aware of that fact. Even the crowd, with all its energy, seemed to be waiting for permission to truly turn this thing into another party.

But after a somewhat skittish opening to the affair, Blues clamped down in the necessary areas defensively long enough to deliver the first goal of the game.

With the Blues finally demonstrating some clean puck movement in the offensive zone, Pavel Buchnevich set up shop in front of the crease, going to the dirty area of the ice as is crucial for a Jim Montgomery-coached scheme. In an effort to move Buchnevich off his mark, Winnipeg’s Dylan Samberg inadvertently screened Hellebuyck on the first Blues goal of the game.

In concert with the Blues’ objective to create chaos at the net front, Samberg’s efforts in pest control took Hellebuyck’s eyes off the prize. His vision seemed perfectly cut off just as Philip Broberg sent a wobbling puck toward the nylon.

So the Blues escaped a period in which they didn’t necessarily look like the superior team with a 1-0 lead. Then right out of the gates of the second period, Justin Faulk made a decision that he probably wished he could take back--and fortunately, it got taken back, at least partially.

Faulk collected the puck in the defensive zone but immediately gave it back up with an overly aggressive pass attempt to turn it over to Winnipeg. In an effort to avoid giving up the goal, he let one mistake become two and committed a hooking penalty--and then still allowed the goal.

The Blues didn’t hesitate in challenging the play, though, as the play was clearly offsides and probably only wasn’t whistled as such due to the chaos and utter shock everyone in the building had when seeing Faulk cough it up so needlessly. It was another example early of the Blues struggling to just make the simple play in the early portion of the game.

After the Blues killed off the Faulk penalty, which stood despite the action that created it getting overturned due to the offsides, the Jets still had more momentum than the Enterprise Center crowd wanted to see, and drew the next penalty to eventually find their first goal.

Replay review took a look at what was originally labeled a major penalty on Nathan Walker--but it was reduced to a minor slashing call after review. There was also a case to be made that took a dive on the play to draw the call, but no embellishment was called on the ice, to the chagrin of the Blues head coach.

The penalty was all the Jets needed to get on the board as they scored on a tipped puck in a crowd in front of the net less than 10 seconds into the power play.

The goal had an air of inevitability--and it helped the air leave the building for the next few minutes of the period.

But in the same way that we had seen the Blues grind through those anxious moments in other home games of this series, the Note found their stride and eventually delivered another knockout blow to Hellebuyck later in the second.

A dirty goal in front of the net by Nathan Walker started getting the crowd back into it, and when Brayden Schenn put one past Hellebuyck on a save that the Vezina finalist frankly should have had, it was all the encouragement the building needed to start mercilessly riding Hellebuyck until Jets coach Scott Arniel relieved him of his duties to open the third period.

Walker and Schenn opened the barn door before Cam Fowler and Alexey Toropchenko charged through it to cap a four-goal barrage in the span of 5 minutes and 23 seconds in the period. The Blues cemented a 5-1 lead at that point and never looked back as the blitz of Hellebuyck was successful for the third straight home game.

With Fowler’s goal, he became the first defenseman in Blues history to register 10 points in a single playoff series.

The Blues showed Friday that a fast start was a luxury they didn’t necessarily require, proving again to be the team with enough mental toughness to chip away at the brick wall long enough to see it eventually crumble, reaping the rewards on the other side.

With the win, St. Louis ensured that this magical run would see at least one more day, and two of the most exciting words in sports: Game Seven.

To advance beyond that point, St. Louis will have to find a way to do something it hasn’t done yet in this series--win a road game. But if you ask their captain, these Blues wouldn’t have it any other way.

“It’s what you play for,” Brayden Schenn stated simply regarding Game 7. “It’s one of those things where you have to go enjoy the moment. Take your work seriously but enjoy the moment while you’re there. It’s going to be a tough building to play in, we know that. But we feel like we haven’t had our best there yet and we’re looking forward to the challenge.”

Jim Montgomery knows that the Blues have elements of their game that they must remain disciplined and consistent with in order to arrive at the result they want in Sunday night’s do-or-die scenario. But with big-game goaltender Jordan Binnington in tow, it’s not about fixating on home or road.

Regardless of venue, Monty’s not paying heed to anything other than the bottom line of what sits before his hockey team Sunday.

“You don't think about winning Game 1 when you're playing in your basement, or you're playing street hockey, or you're playing knee hockey with your best friend or brother,” Montgomery said, stating that this is the type of moment that everyone in this organization has dreamed about.

“It’s Game 7, it's overtime… It's about us seizing an opportunity. It's an opportunity that we've earned, and now we gotta go seize it.”