ST. LOUIS — Playoff runs are filled with times like these. Moments where, now, it has to go one of two ways. We’re all out of second chances.
“We’re realists. We’re down 3-2 in the series,” St. Louis Blues captain David Backes said, his face having aged considerably since we first put a recorder in front of it a good month and a half ago. “We win or we go home.
“That’s the just the facts.”
The Cleveland Cavaliers got pushed Monday night and they pushed back, nearly hard enough. The Blues got pushed hard by Joe Pavelski and the San Jose Sharks, and couldn’t find whatever it is that championship teams concoct in desperate times like these.
In a town where the hockey team has always been more familiar with the road to golf than the road to glory, the Blues came out of their dressing room after 40 minutes tied 3-3, well in control of their fate. Then Pavelski put a lovely tip on a Brent Burns wrist shot, giving the Sharks a lead 16 seconds into the period.
Sixteen seconds!
It was a fantastic play by Pavelski, but one that didn’t require enough work from a Blues perspective. It was earned on Pavelski’s considerable puck-tipping skills, but it came from nowhere. The Sharks didn’t have to fight for it at all.
And so was the rest of the third period too easy for San Jose. Two empty-netters and the Sharks head home with a 6-3 win, one win away from their first ever trip to the Stanley Cup Final.
“(Sixteen) seconds in. Takes the juice right out of us right away,” said St. Louis goalie Jake Allen. “He’s one of the best in the league in front of the net and he has been for the last five or six years. He gets his stick on everything. It was one of those ones where you just hope it hits you.”
Pavelski’s hand-eye coordination is perhaps second to none in today’s National Hockey League. It was once Detroit’s Tomas Holmstrom who was the best in the NHL at deflecting shots. Now Pavelski is the Duke of Deflections, the Ruler of Redirection.
“He practises for years,” marvelled linemate Joe Thornton, whose passing skills were on display again in Game 5 with three assists. “If you put work in like he does with tipping pucks, knowing his body and where to put his stick, the results happen all the time.
“He and Burns, those two are always working together. It’s beautiful to watch.”
Yeah, beautiful.
Not so much if you’re St. Louis, a team that took four games and a goalie switch to finally put together 60 minutes they’d been pretty proud of in Game 4. Two nights later and they’re watching the Sharks score six — albeit two into an empty cage.
“We made errors. A couple young guys made mistakes that a year from now they’re not going to make,” rued head coach Ken Hitchcock. “We made mistakes at the wrong time against good players who can keep plays alive. We were looking for the clear. We shouldn’t have poured the numbers in where we did.”
Hitchcock looked brilliant when he gave Allen the start in Game 4 and his team played their best game. Well, in his two starts Allen has racked up a save percentage of .881, and Hitch will likely go back to Brian Elliott in San Jose.
“I don’t know,” he shrugged of a decision that will not be impactful either way. “That’s stuff we’ll talk about tomorrow.”
“It’s frustrating, don’t get me wrong,” added Backes. “But we’ve still got a series here. It’s not over. We’ve got a job to do. Go in there and get (a win).”
The Sharks have never won 11 post-season games before, and you know what that gets you. A chance to play one game — at home — for a berth in the Cup Final.
For everything this close-but-no-cigar organization has been striving for since Nov. 30, 2005 when the Sharks dealt Brad Stuart, Marco Sturm and Wayne Primeau to the Boston Bruins for a kid named Jumbo Joe Thornton.
The day has arrived for San Jose, as it has for St. Louis.
“You’re going to think about it. That’s just a little more motivation to come out for that game and win,” said young centreman Chris Tierney. “Sometimes you might not get this chance in your career, or maybe once. I think guys know that and they really want to take advantage of it.”
And the Blues? They’re praying for one of those games at home this spring.
It’s going to take the game of their lives Wednesday night to earn it.
Said Hitchcock: “We have no choice. We’ve got to bring it back for Game 7.”
Something’s gotta give. That’s just the way these playoffs work.
