St. Louis makes it all click in OT
BOSTON — Blues defenseman Carl Gunnarsson bumped into coach Craig Berube in the bathroom before the start of overtime and told him: “I just need one more.”
“He hit the post in the third there, and he just felt good about himself, obviously. Which he should have,” Berube said. “I liked hearing it.”
After clanging the potential winner off the post in the final two minutes of regulation, Gunnarsson scored on a delayed penalty 3:51 into overtime to give St. Louis a 3-2 victory over the Boston Bruins and tie the Stanley Cup Finals at a game apiece.
Jordan Binnington made 21 saves, and Robert Bortuzzo and Vladimir Tarasenko scored in regulation to help the Blues earn their first victory in a Stanley Cup Finals after 13 losses.
“I guess that’s a little bonus and pretty cool if you think about it that way,” Gunnarsson said. “We’re pretty sure we’re not going to stop here.”
Charlie Coyle and Joakim Nordstrom scored and Tuukka Rask made 34 saves for Boston, which won 4-2 in Game 1 on Monday night for its eighth straight postseason victory.
Game 3 is Saturday night in St. Louis.
“Would have loved to have it in the third, but who cares?” Gunnarsson said on the ice moments after the victory. “It’s great, taking this home.”
After a furious first period that ended in a 2-all tie, the teams went on defense in the second. Despite four penalties, including a high-sticking, blood-drawing double-minor against Boston’s Connor Clifton, neither team was able to score.
It stayed tied through a hardhitting third period, with both teams failing to convert good scoring chances and avoid overtime.
But after the break, it was all Blues.
Boston did not get off a shot in the overtime, and the Eastern Conference champs struggled to clear the puck out of their zone. Alexander Steen drew a hooking penalty in front of the net, and the Blues pulled Binnington for an extra skater.
Gunnarsson worked it around to the blue line, passed it to Oskar Sundqvist and then got it back for a rifle shot over Rask’s stick side into the corner of the net.
“He got a second chance at it and made the most of it,” forward Brayden Schenn said. “The boys are happy for him.”
Gunnarsson also fed Bortuzzo midway through the first period for a shot that deflected off Matt Grzelcyk’s stick past Rask to make it 1-1. Nordstrom scored just 40 seconds later to give Boston a 2-1 lead, but that lasted less than five minutes before Tarasenko scored.
“It was kind of like a crazy first. We got the lead, tie, lead, tie, kind of bounced back and forth,” Rask said. “It probably wasn’t our best game today.”
Grzelcyk left with about two minutes left in the first period after taking an elbow to the back of the head from Sundqvist. Grzelcyk left the arena for a hospital; Bruins coach Bruce Cassidy said he had no other update.