There is playoff heartbreak — and then there is what happened to the Blues on Sunday night.
St. Louis was a mere 2.2 seconds away from pulling off an upset against Winnipeg, who led the NHL with 116 points this season, in Game 7 of the first-round series. However, a frenzied sequence allowed Cole Perfetti to score a game-tying goal.
“We thought we could gain control of the puck and win the battle,” Blues coach Jim Montgomery told the St. Louis Post Dispatch afterwards. “Unfortunately, we didn’t manage it, and that put us out of position. That’s why there was an odd-man rush… a 3-on-2 at the net. They missed on their one-timer, and the puck ended up right in the slot. For some reason, the puck luck in this series was remarkable for the home teams. That’s likely why you saw all seven home teams win.”
Blues forward Pavel Buchnevich was also roasted for a suspect decision with 46 seconds left.
The former Ranger had the opportunity to skate and kill some time but chose instead to shoot from his own blue line, missing the empty net and resulting in an icing call against the Blues.
“If Buchnevich skates the puck with the empty net, instead of airing mailing it for an icing, this game and series is over and the Blues are on to Dallas,” one fan wrote on X.
The Jets would go on to win in double overtime to end the series when Adam Lowry deflected in a shot with 3:50 remaining.
“Yeah, that one stinks,” Blues captain Brayden Schenn told the paper. “That one sucks. Just from a two-goal lead and two 6-on-5 goals against and a second and half away from closing out the series … sucks. It’s brutal. We had a good group in there that played hard for one another all year, and there’s no other words to really describe that one.”
The Blues had led 2-0 and then 3-1 before the Jets pulled goalie Connor Hellebuyck, leading to two goals in the final two minutes.
The second one coming after Nikolaj Ehlers whiffed on a shot at the blue line then got the puck back before sending it cross-ice to Kyle Connor who fired it in front of the net where Perfetti was there to chip it in for his second goal of the game.
Jordan Kyrou, Mathieu Joseph and Radek Faksa scored for the Blues. Jordan Binnington had 43 saves.
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Winnipeg won the franchise’s first Presidents’ Trophy with a 56-22-4 regular-season record and were the favorites against the eighth-seeded Blues — but were facing a first-round knockout for the third straight season.
“To lose in those first rounds, those were heartbreaking,” said Jets first-year coach Scott Arniel, who was the club’s associate coach the previous two seasons. “Last year, obviously with the season we had (52 wins), to do it this year we didn’t want to go out. That was one of the messages I said to these guys, ‘Bring your best game forward and have no regrets.’ And that’s what it was all about.”
The Jets will next face the Dallas Stars starting Wednesday at home in the teams’ first postseason meeting.
The Stars advanced with some Game 7 third period magic of their own on Saturday night — erasing a 2-0 deficit against the Avalanche on the strength of Mikko Rantanen’s hat trick.
— With AP
