From last in the league in early January all the way to the brink of their first Stanley Cup Final in nearly half a century, it has been quite a ride for the St Louis Blues.
The remarkable turnaround continued on Sunday with perhaps their most convincing win of a charmed playoff run.
Jaden Schwartz started a dominant second period with the first of his three goals and Vladimir Tarasenko scored a penalty as the Blues moved within one win of the Stanley Cup final with a 5-0 victory over the San Jose Sharks in Game 5 of the Western Conference final series.
Photo: AFP
“It’s probably tough to put into words,” Schwartz said. “It’s something that everyone’s worked for and dreamed about. You don’t want to look too far ahead. We all know how important and how hard that last win’s going to be. It would be a dream come true.”
St Louis used a relentless forecheck to take control of the game and the series in the second period, scoring twice and outshooting the beleaguered Sharks 20-6 during the frame.
They also got 21 saves from Jordan Binnington in his first playoff shutout and a first-period goal from Oskar Sundqvist to overwhelm the Sharks.
Schwartz added two goals in the third for his second hat-trick this post-season, becoming the first player with two in one playoff run since Johan Franzen for Detroit in 2008.
The victory gave the Blues a 3-2 series lead, the closest they have been to making the final since getting there in their first three seasons as the winner of the all-expansion Western Conference.
St Louis can earn their first trip back to the final since 1970 with a win at home in Game 6 today, an improbable journey for a team that was last in the standings on Jan. 2.
“We’re close. We’re very close right now,” Blues forward Patrick Maroon said. “I think the guys know that. It’s in the back of their heads, but we know that that’s a good hockey team over there, too, and they’re not going to give up.”
Martin Jones made 35 saves for the Sharks, but got little help from his teammates, who have been held to one goal in losing the past two games.
San Jose now face elimination for the third straight series, having overcome a 3-1 series deficit to Vegas in the first round and winning a Game 7 at home in the second round against Colorado.
“We’ve been here before,” Sharks coach Peter DeBoer said. “Had to go on the road and win in Vegas in order to get to a Game 7. You’re never comfortable when your back’s against the wall like that, but we have been here before and found a way, and I’m confident we can do that again.”
INJURY TURMOIL: Despite stunning French Open champions Paolini and Errani to advance, Chan was forced to pull out after her partner’s tearful women’s singles defeat Last year’s mixed doubles champions Hsieh Su-wei of Taiwan and Poland’s Jan Zielinski on Monday crashed out of the quarter-finals at Wimbledon, leaving the Taiwanese star focused on pursuing a fifth women’s doubles title in London, while a partner injury forced compatriot Chan Hao-ching to give up on her doubles campaign. Hsieh and Zielinksi, who last year also won the Australia Open title, narrowly lost their opening set 7-6 (9/7), before Britain’s Joe Salisbury and Brazil’s Luisa Stefani stunned the former champions 6-3 at the All England Lawn Tennis and Croquet Club. The Taiwanese-Polish duo had been dominant in the first two
The Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) has overturned French Olympic fencer Ysaora Thibus’ four-year suspension for doping, ruling that her positive test for a banned substance was caused by kissing her then-boyfriend, American fencer Race Imboden. Thibus, a silver medalist in team foil at the Tokyo Games, had tested positive for ostarine, a prohibited muscle-building substance, during a competition in Paris in January last year. However, CAS concluded there was no intentional wrongdoing, finding it scientifically plausible that repeated kissing over several days with Olympic medalist Imboden — who was taking ostarine at the time — led to accidental contamination. The court
‘SU-PENKO’: Hsieh and Ostapenko face a rematch against their Australian Open final opponents, the same duo Hsieh played in last year’s Wimbledon semi-finals Taiwanese women’s doubles star Hsieh Su-wei and Latvian partner Jelena Ostapenko on Wednesday survived a near upset to the unseeded duo of Sorana Cirstea of Romania and Russia’s Anna Kalinskaya, setting up a semi-final showdown against last year’s winners. Despite losing a hard-fought opening set 7-6 (7/4) on a tiebreak, the fourth seeds turned up the heat, losing just five games in the final two sets to handily put down Cirstea and Kalinskaya 6-3, 6-2. Nicknamed “Su-Penko,” the pair are next to face top seeds Katerina Siniakova of the Czech Republic and Taylor Townsend of the US in a reversal of last
Switzerland’s Riola Xhemaili on Thursday scored a last-gasp goal to salvage a dramatic 1-1 draw with Finland that sent the joyous hosts through to the quarter-finals at Euro 2025, and heartbroken Finland home. Switzerland, who needed only a draw to advance based on goal-difference, finished second in Group A behind Norway to go through to the knockout round for the first time and are to face the winners of Group B, which would be world champions Spain as things stand. “I think we set ourselves a goal on the pitch, to write history, to go into the knockout stages, which we’ve never
RSS