'I’m not talking about 6-on-5 right now': Blues weakness bites them again in Game 7 loss
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The St. Louis Blues were the worst team in the NHL this season in one category: Goals allowed in 6-on-5 play.
It came back to bite them again on Sunday.
St. Louis allowed a league-worst 13 goals in 6-on-5, and the Winnipeg Jets erased a 3-1 deficit with two 6-on-5 goals in the final two minutes of the third period to force overtime in Game 7.
The Jets pulled goaltender Connor Hellebuyck with just over three minutes left in the third period, and Vladislav Namestnikov scored to cut the deficit to one with 1:55 left to play.
With the net empty again for the final minute, the puck escaped a scramble near the Blues net and found Nikolaj Ehlers with seconds remaining. Ehlers fired cross-ice to Kyle Connor, who hit Cole Perfetti in the slot to score the tying goal with 1.6 seconds left on the clock - the latest tying goal in a Game 7 in Stanley Cup Playoffs history.
Adam Lowry would go on to score the game winner in double overtime to send the Jets to the second round and the Blues packing.
“I don’t know,” defenceman Colton Parayko said of the team's struggles in 6-on-5. “I wish I had the right answer. When we’re good 6-on-5, we’re at the net front. We’re pushing out fast, making it hard on them to make plays. But I don’t know.”
Head coach Jim Montgomery, who started the season at the helm of the Boston Bruins before he was fired in December and joined the Blues not longer after, was frustrated by the team's performance in that situation.
“It’s an area of our team that has not been good all year and it’s an area I have to get better at so that our team is better next year at pulled goalie situations,” he said after the game. “I don’t want to continue to talk about 6-on-5. Like I said, we’ll analyze it, we’ll get better, OK? We can analyze this at the end of the year.”
Blues captain Brayden Schenn, who finished minus-3 in 28:11 of ice time with one shot attempt and was on the ice for both extra-attacker goals allowed, didn't want to think about it after the loss.
“I’m not talking about 6-on-5 right now,” he said.
The Blues made a stunning charge up the standings after the 4 Nations Face-Off break in February. Entering the break, they sat 11th in the Western Conference standings at 25-26-5. But they went 19-4-2 the rest of the way, including a franchise-record 12-game winning streak in March and April.
It made the bitter loss to Winnipeg (who also ended the 12-game winning streak in the regular season) that much more tough to swallow for the team.
“What we did here in the last three months is we changed the culture back to where it needs to be, to be able to grow and get better,” Montgomery said. “Now we need to continue to have a great summer and grow as an organization on and off the ice, so that we can continue to build off this. That’s what we’ve done and we’ve got to continue to do it for our great fans.”
Montgomery said he didn't speak for long to the players after the game, but thanked them for the season.
“I went in and thanked them,” he said. “It really hurts right now. You lose Game 7 in overtime, especially when you have the lead going at the end, it just hurts. But I wanted to thank them for their effort, their execution and their part in helping change things. It took everybody on deck to be able to do what we did.”