Blues finally advance over Blackhawks in Game 7 thriller

The St. Louis Blues don’t have to hear about a first-round playoff disappointment this year.

In Game 7 at home they finally put away the defending Stanley Cup champion Chicago Blackhawks with a 3-2 victory.

St. Louis was up 3-1 in the series, blew the lead, but bounced back with a strong and resilient effort to finally slay Chicago. The Blues will face the Dallas Stars in the next round of the playoffs.

Not only does this help alleviate the pain of the previous three years for the franchise in regards to first-round disappointments, it also cools the seat beneath coach Ken Hitchcock who was behind the bench for all those series.

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Blues forward Troy Brouwer put St. Louis ahead 3-2 with 11:29 left in the third period. Brouwer took a feed from forward Robby Fabbri in front and hit the post initially. He then stuck with the play in front to push the puck into the net. This proved to be the game-winner.

St. Louis was able to stabilize the game in the final frame after a furious second period comeback by the Blackhawks.

Andrew Shaw scored his fourth goal of the playoffs when he banked a power play goal off Blues defenseman Jay Bouwmeester at the 3:20 mark of the second period to put the game at 2-2.

Then goaltender Corey Crawford went to work.

Midway through the second, he stuffed Fabbri at the end of a sequence. The puck came across to Fabbri wide open in front of the Chicago net. He fired a shot and Crawford got a blocker on it to keep the game tied at 2-2.

With 5:43 left in the second, Crawford made a gorgeous glove save on Blues sniper Vladimir Tarasenko.

Marian Hossa scored for Chicago with 1:30 left in the first to help steal back some momentum for the Blackhawks.

Jori Lehtera scored one minute into the game to make it 1-0, then Colton Parayko fired a blast at the 13:43 mark of the first to put it at 2-0.  After back-to-back mediocre performances, goaltender Blues goaltender Brian Elliott made 31 saves on 33 shots on goal.

The Blues came into the game with plenty of drama over Tarasenko’s ice-time and his relationship with coach Ken Hitchcock. In the end, Tarasenko played just 14:31 and had the one big scoring chance, but his production didn’t figure much in the end result.

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