New look on defense lifts Blues

ST. LOUIS — With the game — and perhaps the season — in the balance, assistant coach Mike Van Ryn of the Blues made a decision.

With the Blues battling with the host Sharks in Game 2 on Monday night, Van Ryn decided to tweak his defensive pairings. He put Alex Pietrangelo with veteran Jay Bouwmeester, the offensive-minded Vince Dunn with the powerful slap shot of Colton Parayko, and Joel Edmundson with fellow defensive stalwart Robert Bortuzzo.

So of course, it was Bortuzzo who scored the game-winning goal in the 4-2 victory late in the second period off a nice give-and-go with Edmundson.

“I think Ryno did a good job there of just reading off of how we were feeling,” Edmundson said. “All six of us, we’re comfortable playing with each other. When he put me and (Bortuzzo) together, we kind of got excited. We like playing together. It was nice to get out there with Bobbo again, especially getting that goal and helping our team out.”

Bortuzzo became the fifth Blues defenseman to score a goal in this postseason. More important, the Blues tied the Western Conference finals at 1-1 with Game 3 on Wednesday night in St. Louis.

Dunn also scored and Edmundson had a pair of assists as Blues defenseman totaled five points in Game 2 and had a hand in all four goals. The Blues are tied with the Sharks with 38 points from defensemen in the playoffs, the most in the NHL.

Blues coach Craig Berube said the defensive switches resulted from switching up the lineups on the power play.

“Sometimes that’s needed just to mix things up,” Berube said. “It could be matchup. It could be a number of different things. Our team understands that and they know that things change during the game, but they don’t let it affect them. They stay with their game. They stay with the game plan. And they stay focused.

“... We want our defense to be active and they produced for us all year and produced in the playoffs, too.”