Blues oust Sharks
Injury-ravaged San Jose no match for goalie Bennington in Game 6
St. Louis wins to advance to its first Stanley Cup final since 1970.
ST. LOUIS — The St. Louis Blues are marching into the Stanley Cup final for the first time in decades.
David Perron had a goal and an assist, Jordan Binnington picked up his franchise-record 12th playoff win and the Blues beat the San Jose Sharks, 5-1, in Game 6 of the Western Conference finals Tuesday night.
Vladimir Tarasenko, Brayden Schenn and Tyler Bozak also scored for St. Louis, which will face the Boston Bruins for the championship. Ivan Barbashev got an empty-netter with 2:15 left, Ryan O’Reilly had three assists and Binnington stopped 25 shots.
St. Louis won three consecutive games to advance to the franchise’s first Cup final since 1970. That series also pitted the Blues against the Bruins.
Game 1 is scheduled for Monday night in Boston.
This was the most important win in an improbable run from last in the NHL Jan. 3 to one of the last two teams standing.
The turnaround came after Craig Berube replaced former Penguins assistant coach Mike Yeo as coach in November and Binnington replaced Jake Allen as the starting goaltender in January.
San Jose played without injured forwards Joe Pavelski and Tomas Hertl and defenseman Erik Karlsson. Injury attrition played a role for the Sharks, who played seven games in each of the first two rounds.
Dylan Gambrell scored his first career goal for San Jose, which lost for the first time in five elimination games this postseason.
Perron, a former Penguins forward, tipped in Sammy Blais’ shot just 92 seconds into the game. Tarasenko made it 2-0 at 16:16. Tarasenko got his eighth goal of the postseason just seven seconds after San Jose forward Barclay Goodrow was sent off for tripping.
Gambrell converted a breakaway along the right wing 6:40 into the second period. Joonas Donskoi set up the play with a long stretch pass. Gambrell’s goal came just seconds after Jones stopped Pat Maroon from close range.
It also stopped the Sharks’ scoring drought at 99 minutes, 32 seconds.