Goalie Allen has St. Louis poised for series sweep
St. Louis Blues coach Mike Yeo said before the start of his team’s series against the Minnesota Wild that one player wouldn’t win or lose the series for his team.
Jake Allen is doing his best to prove his coach wrong.
The Blues goalie was outstanding for the third consecutive game, making 40 saves and Jaden Schwartz had the go-ahead goal in the second period to give the Blues a 3-1 win Sunday against the Wild at the Scottrade Center in St. Louis for a 3-0 lead in their first-round playoff series.
“He’s been unbelievable, a big reason why we got these three wins, and it gives us a lot of confidence,” Schwartz said of Allen.
“He’s in the zone and he’s really backstopping us right now. He’s making some big, timely saves, which gives us a lot of momentum.”
Allen has been the star of the first three games. He has stopped 114 of the 117 shots he has faced for a .974 save percentage and 0.91 goals-against-average against a Wild team that ranked second in the NHL in scoring in the regular season.
Colton Parayko also scored for the Blues and Alexander Steen added an empty-netter for St. Louis, which will try to sweep the series Wednesday night in St. Louis.
“They’ve stuck to their game plan and we’ve stuck to ours and it was a real tough test for us out there the second half of the game,” Allen said.
“They pushed really hard and put us on our heels a bit and we grinded and we got it done. A huge win for us.”
Charlie Coyle scored for Minnesota, which got 28 saves from Devan Dubnyk. Dubnyk has allowed just two goals in each of the three games, stopping 92.3 percent of the shots he’s faced, but the Wild have lost all three games.
“We’ve played three pretty good hockey games and we’ve just to keep playing hard,” Dubnyk said. “Putting pucks to the net and trying to get some bounces and see if we can turn the momentum.”
Schwartz had a powerplay goal at 15:19 of the second period to put the Blues one win away from the second round.
He scored with 2:27 left in the third period of Game 2 to give St. Louis the 2-1 win.
On Sunday, the Blues scored just 3:25 into the first period when Parayko beat Dubnyk high with a shot from the high slot after a nice pass from Patrik Berglund.
The goal was the third in 23 playoff games for Parayko.
St. Louis outshot Minnesota, 15-9, in the first period, but couldn’t build on its early lead. Vladimir Tarasenko and Steen both hit the post.
Minnesota tied it with a goal from Coyle with 7:01 left in the second period.
Other game
Canadiens 3, Rangers 1: Shea Weber and Alexander Radulov scored in the third period to lift visiting Montreal past New York at Madison Square Garden to take a 2-1 series lead. Artturi Lehkonen scored for the Canadiens in the second period. Brady Skjei scored the Rangers’ goal late in the third.