ST. LOUIS (AP) Vladimir Tarasenko was at the right place at the right time to take advantage of a lucky bounce and help the St. Louis Blues get a big win.
Tarasenko scored twice, including the tiebreaking goal with 3:51 left to give the Blues a 3-2 victory over the Nashville Predators on Friday night, tying their NHL Western Conference semifinal series at one game apiece.
On the go-ahead goal, Jaden Schwartz led the rush and initially tried to pass to Joel Edmundson, but the pass was off the mark and Edmundson kicked it right to Tarasenko’s stick.
”It’s a great play by Schwartzy and then I probably scream for Eddy to give it to me and he made a good play,” Tarasenko said. ”It’s a good goal for us. We lost the first game, we couldn’t lose this one.”
It was the first time St. Louis had taken the lead in the series for 116 minutes.
”It ended up actually going off a stick and in, but I’m not taking anything away from him (Tarasenko),” Predators goalie Pekka Rinne said. ”He has a great shot for a reason.”
Jori Lehtera also scored for the Blues, and Jake Allen stopped 22 shots – including 14 in the third period.
Ryan Ellis had a goal and an assist and James Neal also scored for the Predators, who had their franchise-high five-game postseason winning streak snapped. Rinne finished with 17 saves.
Game 3 is Sunday at Nashville, Tennessee.
Tarasenko, who scored 39 goals in the regular season, had scored just once in the Blues’ first five playoff games.
”He’s just a big game player and those kinds of guys find ways to make big plays at big times,” Blues coach Mike Yeo said. ”My only concern was that if he continued to play well and didn’t get rewarded that his game would drop. And he has shown me that he hasn’t done that.”
Ellis put the Predators ahead 2-1 at 3:07 of the third period as he took advantage of a turnover by Vladimir Sobotka and fired a slap shot past Allen.
”I don’t think we expected to win 16 games straight and walk to a Stanley Cup,” Ellis said after Nashville’s first loss of the postseason. ”We were bound to lose a game. Obviously, I thought we played a decent game but probably didn’t deserve to win that one and obviously didn’t win that one.”
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