Pat Maroon yesterday scored the game winner to cap a wild third period and lift the St Louis Blues to a 4-3 win over the Dallas Stars in their second-round NHL playoff series.
The Blues and the Stars traded four goals in the final seven minutes of Game 3, but Maroon had the final say as the Blues took a 2-1 lead in the best-of-seven Western Conference series.
Maroon took a pass behind the Stars’ goal, then moved out front and threaded a shot under the blocker of Stars goaltender Ben Bishop from a sharp angle with 1 minute, 38 seconds left in the third.
The Stars had a chance to tie it up when the Blues’ Colton Parayko took a penalty for delay of game with 44 seconds to go. With the goalie pulled, they had a six-on-four skater advantage, but they could not get the puck to the front of the net for a good scoring chance before the clock ran out.
The Stars have an opportunity to square the series when they host Game 4 today at home.
Jaden Schwartz, Tyler Bozak and Alex Pietrangelo also scored for the Blues, who improved to 4-0 on the road in the playoffs and regained a home-ice advantage in the series. Alexander Radulov, Andrew Cogliano and Tyler Seguin scored, while Bishop stopped 30 shots for the Stars.
Schwartz opened the scoring for the Blues just 87 seconds into the first period. The Blues had wanted to get off to a better start than in Game 2, when they fell behind 2-0 in the first period.
The game was tight checking for the first 53 minutes with the Blues using their strong defense to counter the Stars’ superior size and speed.
However, Cogliano scored a short-handed goal with 6:54 left in the third period to tie the game 2-2 and set off a chain of events that would electrify the crowd as the teams traded four goals over a 5:16 span.
Blues captain Pietrangelo and Stars forward Seguin traded goals just 88 seconds apart to tie it at 3-3 with just over four minutes remaining in the third period. That set the stage for Maroon’s winner, which was his second goal of the playoffs.
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