ST. LOUIS — The Blues had gone the entire season losing three consecutive home games only once. They picked the wrong time to make it twice — the time that ends your season. But that’s what happened Friday at Enterprise Center.
The Colorado Avalanche, Stanley Cup favorites since before the first puck was even dropped in training camp, moved on to the Western Conference finals for the first time since 2002. They turned the lights out on the Blues’ season with a 3-2 victory, thus clinching the second-round playoff series four games to two.
Darren Helm, with his first goal of the postseason, scored the game-winner with just 5.6 seconds to play.
Colorado thus remains the only team in the playoffs to be unbeaten on the road. The Avs are 5-0, the second-longest road winning streak in franchise history.
The Blues are done. After a strong regular season, followed by an impressive first-round series win over Minnesota, they simply lost to a better team in Round 2.
Charles Glenn sang the anthem, magnificently of course. Laila Anderson, the darling of the Blues’ 2019 Stanley Cup run, banged the “Let’s Go Blues!” drum. The Blues did everything but sing “Gloria” to get the crowd going.
They also showed some of David Freese’s heroics from Game 6 of the 2011 World Series against Toronto. Game 6, mind you. See what they did there?
And Freese himself was shown with a taped interview on the videoboard cheering on the Blues.
Despite all that, the Blues weren’t sharp at the outset. Well, Ville Husso was. But everyone else? Meh. The Blues’ passes were disjointed, they seemed a little nervous. In many ways it seemed like the starts of Games 1, 4 and 5 against the Avalanche.
Past the midway part of the period shots were 11-2 in favor of the Avalanche. The Blues had trouble getting out of the neutral zone. Meanwhile, Colorado made a concerted effort to get players — and the puck — to the net.
But Husso was sharp. About 6 1/2 minutes in, he stopped a Mikko Rantanen backhand during a net-front scramble. With 8:55 left in the period, Rantanen had a clean look from the right circle — but the shot posed no problem for Husso.
The Blues got the game’s first power play when defensemen Josh Manson was whistled for interference against Jordan Kyrou. St. Louis had a couple of decent chances on the power play, but nothing resembling sustained pressure.
And then with the period winding down, Justin Faulk got a pass from Robert Thomas in the high slot, considered a shot, but didn’t shoot. He moved in a little closer to the net and ripped a shot past Colorado goalie Darcy Kuemper, high and stick side.
With exactly one minute left in the period, the Blues were up 1-0 and Faulk had his first goal of the postseason. It appeared Faulk had scored in Game 5 Wednesday in Denver but more than an hour after the game, it was changed to Kyrou. But this one stuck with Faulk on Friday.
Over the first five games of the series, the team that scored first lost four of five times. So whether this was a good thing or not for the Blues remained to be seen. But undoubtedly they were happy with the goal.
Colorado tied the game at 1-all at the 5:19 mark of the second period, after an extended period of zone time by the Avalanche. It all started when Colton Parayko waited and waited between the St. Louis net and then banked the puck off the wall on right wing but didn’t clear the puck.
The Avalanche kept working and working and the Blues were stuck on the ice for quite some time. Parayko was on the ice for 2:43 before he finally got off the ice. Nick Leddy wasn’t so lucky. He was on the ice for 3:23 before the Avs got two players net front. One of them, J.T. Compher, was there for a rebound goal for the Colorado goal.
Colorado continued to press the action, but the Blues got in a few counters here and there. One of them resulted in a Kyrou goal and a 2-1 St. Louis lead.
The sequence began when Niko Mikkola blocked a shot by Nicolas Aube-Kubel. The puck rolled out near the blueline, where Brayden Schenn took it away from an Avalanche player and raced down right wing on a 2-on-1 break with Kyrou.
Schenn waited and waited, and then passed to Kyrou who buried it into the open side of the net for a 2-1 lead at the 9:34 mark of the second. It was Kyrou’s seventh goal of the postseason.
Kyrou had two other golden opportunities to score before the period was out. First on a Blues’ power play with Nathan MacKinnon off for tripping Kyrou, Kyrou had Kuemper down on the ice and out of position. Instead of shooting right away, he waited for a lane to clear — his backhand was blocked by Manson — who was back in the goal with Kuemper out of the play.
Later, Kyrou had a mini-breakaway on Kuemper and shot wide. So despite being outshot 26-13 after two, the Blues easily could have been up 4-1. Instead, they held a precarious 2-1 lead entering the third period.
Colorado kept the pressure on in the third period. But as the midway point of the period approached, Parayko was whistled for delay of game after sending an attempted clearing pass over the glass. The Blues did yeoman’s work on the penalty and appeared to have it killed off.
But with one second left on the power play, Compher struck again, this time from the right circle. On a night when Husso made several dazzling saves and kept the Blues in the game, this was one he’d like to have back. Like several goals in this series, this one beat him near side.
So it a 2-2 game with 10:18 to play.
It stayed that way until the final seconds when Helm sent a shot from distance that beat Husso glove side. And that was that.
