Avalanche

Berube kept the faith, and the Blues backed him up, ending an eight-game losing streak in postseason games against the Avs.

“Well, he’s got great vision and a good distributor of the puck,” Berube said. “It was great.” We start with the puck and they don’t.” “Well, I’ve seen it all year, we’re a good team,” he said. “He was way more involved in the offensive zone,” Berube said. A big reason for the win that might have gone unnoticed was the Blues’ success in the faceoff circle. With the Blues leading 1-0 on Kyrou’s goal, Berube made another move that was a bit surprising. Then, when the puck’s over or they get possession, we reloaded well and I thought we did a good job coming back in our own zone, protecting the middle of the ice and our D did a hell of a job defending the rush, defending in our zone.” Though Thomas wasn’t on the ice when Kyrou scored the game’s first goal Thursday, he was more engaged. “We did a good job,” Berube said. “More balance,” Berube said Thursday morning. Take a look at this offensive-zone possession by the line of Perron, Buchnevich and Ryan O’Reilly just three minutes into the game.

Bowen Byram: B – Played smart again tonight. Incredible sliding saving to make up for coughing up the puck in his own zone. Erik Johnson: C – He was involved ...

Andre Burakovsky : D – His passing was off tonight like the rest of the team. It’s hard to blame this game on him, but Binnington is certainly winning the goalie duel right now. Mikko Rantanen : C – Big games need their big players. Artturi Lehkonen: C – Crazy he didn’t record a shot. Led the team with five shots but that was really it from the star defensemen. Not much for the other lines.

From the moment his team dropped Game 1, Blues coach Craig Berube was calm and composed. This had nothing to do with false bravado, this was genuine belief.

The moment he stepped in the Minnesota series, we saw a difference with how good he was with the puck, and we want to keep doing that.” “It’s one game, we knew this was going to be a long, hard series. In years past, we might dwell on it and get down on ourselves and each other or whatever it might be, but we’ve got to pick each other up and move on and stay positive. So that makes everything more difficult,” said Bednar. “In Game 1, I thought we were the quicker team, I thought we worked extremely hard and that was probably their biggest adjustment, right? We talked about just controlling the puck and tracking back hard and trying to outnumber them all over the ice.” “From the get-go, it seemed like we got on our forecheck way more. “We were all supporting each other, and you know the depth we had today, that was good. Tonight, we had a lot more guys and it was important to find a way to win one here on the road, just like we did last time against Minnesota. We've got to keep pushing forward here.” Bottom line, so I’m not going to place the blame on either guy, but you’ve got to take care of the puck,” Avalanche head coach Jared Bednar told reporters. “It’s a turnover high in the zone. We probably had two or three players have a good game, that was it. Really good job of getting pucks up in our zone on the walls.”

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"We did a good job, and we forechecked hard tonight," St. Louis coach Crag Berube said after the game, via NHL.com. "We put pucks to good areas and were on it. When the puck turned over or they get their possession, we reloaded well, and I thought that we did a good job coming back in our own zone, protecting the middle ice, and our 'D' did a [heck] of a job of defending the rush, defending in our zone. David Perron put the Blues up 2-0 on a power play and later 3-1 in the third period. St. Louis broke through in the second period with a Jordan Kyrou goal 5:45 in. St. Louis would add two goals later in the period to put Colorado away. "We played a connected hockey game," Binnington said.

Stellar in goal yet again. David Perron scored twice as St. Louis juggled its offensive pairings, Binnington made 30 saves and the Blues beat the Colorado ...

Notes: With his second goal of the series, Kyrou joins the list of Blues players who now have five or more goals in this postseason. He joins O’Reilly (six), Perron and Vladimir Tarasenko (five), giving the team the most scorers with five or more in the playoffs. He gingerly skated to the bench, but was back on the ice after intermission. The Blues had a 5-on-3 advantage late in the second period when Devon Toews was called for tripping and Valeri Nichushkin for goaltender interference after slamming into Binnington, whose stick went flying. They answered back … Now, the onus is on us.” “We knew this was going to be a long, hard series. “We made some good plays,” Perron said. We probably had two or three players that had good games. “We didn’t have our jump tonight,” MacKinnon said. We did a great job.” “Our execution was off. “We played a connected hockey game,” Binnington said.