The Blues experienced a much different start of the game in Game 2, with Oskar Sundqvist scoring early on to take a 1-0 lead. The Blues spent the majority of the first 10 minutes on the power play because of a few rather egregious cross-checks by the Jets, but were not able to capitalize. When Colton Parayko was not aware that penalty time was expiring and had his shot blocked, Blake Wheeler took advantage and quickly scored to tie it at one. Overall, not a great period, given the opportunities the Blues had.
The Jets came out flying in the second, and basically dominated the first several minutes, but for a few spectacular saves from Jordan Binnington. After Robert Bortuzzo took a senseless, senseless interference penalty, the Blues, naturally, left Patrick Laine completely open for another goal to give the Jets a 2-1 lead. The Jets kept up their inexorable pressure after, but an incredible play by Robert Thomas led to a Pat Maroon goal to make it 2-2. Sundqvist’s second goal gave them a 3-2 lead – soft goal by Connor Hellebuyck, who has not been nearly good enough this series. Now seems like a good time for a friendly reminder that the Blues traded Ryan Reaves for Sundqvist and high-potential prospect Klim Kostin, which…wow.
Play evened out after that, with Hellebuyck making a tremendous (see: lucky) save on O’Reilly to keep the blues from taking a 4-2 lead. Shortly thereafter, a (weak) penalty call on Robert Thomas led to another WPG PP goal to tie it at 3.
WPG was controlling play pretty well at the beginning of the third, but another soft goal, this time by Ryan O’Reilly allowed the Blues to take a 4-3 lead. The rest of the game can pretty much be summed up with this: Jordan Binnington was incredible.
2-0. Back to STL Sunday at 7:30 Eastern
