ST. PAUL, Minn. — The statistics tell you that when a series is tied two games apiece, the winner of Game 5 goes on to win an NHL best-of-seven series more than 79% of the time.
With that in mind, advantage St. Louis. Getting two goals from Vladimir Tarasenko early in the third period, the Blues erased a 2-1 Minnesota lead for a 5-2 victory before a sold out and loud crowd at Xcel Energy Center.
Ad then for good measure, Tarasenko scored again into an empty net for a hat trick with 1:33 to play.
The Blues are now just one victory away from erasing the Wild in this series.
Game 6 is Thursday at Enterprise Center in St. Louis. Game 7, if needed, is Saturday in St. Paul.
Special teams ruled the first period with all three goals scored on power plays. Unfortunately for the Blues, two of those goals came on Minnesota power plays — both by Kirill Kaprizov.
St. Louis dominated the early action, getting a lot of net-front presence and outshooting Minnesota 8-3 over the first 11 minutes of play. One of those Blues shots was a power-play goal by Ryan O’Reilly.
Call it one for the baby because O’Reilly’s wife Jayna gave birth to a baby girl several hours after the Blues’ 5-2 victory Sunday. To squeeze out a few extra hours with mom and the baby, O’Reilly did not fly out with the team Monday afternoon for the Twin Cities. Instead he flew commercial — with a bunch of Blues fans and St. Louis media — on Monday night.
He sat in the emergency row — extra leg room.
With Jacob Middleton off for crosschecking Ivan Barbashev, the Blues got the game’s first power play. The Blues went with 11 forwards and seven defensemen again on Tuesday, with rookie Scott Perunovich as the seventh D-man.
Perunovich ran the first power play in the absence of the injured Torey Krug. After doing so on Sunday, coach Craig Berube said Perunovich needed to shoot more. Perunovich did, and O’Reilly was there to pick up the rebound of Perunovich’s shot from distance.
It was O’Reilly’s fourth goal of the playoffs and the Blues had a 1-0 lead just 4:53 into the contest.
But the second half of the period belonged to the Wild, who outshot the Blues 9-1 over the final eight minutes-plus. The Blues had been strong on the penalty kill in the first four games of the series, killing off 15 of 17 Minnesota power plays, or 88.2%.
But the Wild cashed in on the only other penalties of the period — first, on Nick Leddy who returned to the lineup after missing three games with an upper-body injury. And second on Robert Thomas for slashing.
Kaprizov scored from distance through traffic on the first power play goal and then seemed to fool Jordan Binnington with a quick release from the left faceoff circle to give the Wild a 2-1 lead.
The Wild came out hitting, with a 12-2 edge in hits in the opening period.
There wasn’t much open ice for much of the second period. Checking was tight, and both teams had trouble negotiating the neutral zone. The Blues got the period’s only power play, when Kaprizov was called for hooking Pavel Buchnevich just 55 seconds in.
But the Blues got little going with the man advantage and Minnesota held its 2-1 lead for much of the second period. Things opened up a little as the period wound down and with just 4:32 to play, Brandon Saad scored his first goal of the series — and the game’s first goal at even strength.
It was a quick-developing play. Jordan Kyrou sent the puck for the right corner to the net front, and there was Saad — who’s not shy about traveling into the crease area — for a tip-in and a 2-2 game. Just like that. Until that goal, only four Blues had scored in this postseason: O’Reilly, Kyrou, David Perron and Tarasenko.
Besides Leddy, the Blues also got Robert Bortuzzo back on defense. Bortuzzo took a puck off the side of his head late in the first period of Game 2. He did not play in Games 3 and 4, and returned Tuesday with a black eye as a souvenir of that scary Game 2 episode.
Early in the third period, Tarasenko struck with a couple of thunderbolts. Keep in mind, Tarasenko had had a relatively quiet series with just one goal (in Game 2) entering Tuesday’s contest. But just 63 seconds into the third period, Buchnevich worked behind the Minnesota net and sent a pass out to Tarasenko, who quickly got it past Marc-Andre Fleury for a 3-2 St. Louis lead.
It marked the first time in the entire series there had been a lead change.
It became 4-2 just 1 1/2 minutes later on a classic Tarasenko wrist shot from the left circle through traffic. Tarasenko beat Fleury high with this one, and the puck appeared to flutter — end-over-end — as if it deflected off a body.
In any event, the Blues had scored three goals in a row since that 2-1 first-period deficit but had 17:29 of the third period to navigate. But the Blues didn’t back off. They kept their foot on the gas and had several chances to add to their lead as the clock wound down.
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