Blues Come Back to Win Game Three, 3-2 over Blackhawks

To Blues coach Ken Hitchcock, his team's stout numbers in preventing five-on-five goals come not so much from its defense but from its offense hanging on to the puck. "Wow, that's pretty good". It also puts fear and doubt in the Hawks' heads, as they wonder where they went wrong and how to fix it before they lose both games at home.

"If we expect to beat Chicago in this series, we're going to have to fight through more than just Chicago", Hitchcock said Friday night.

The Blues had been there before, in this building in fact. "I mean obviously we have a lot of respect for our opponent and it's been a tough series so far, but there's no other way to put it than finding a way to get the job done". "At the end of the day, you've got to outwork and outplay the guy you're going to be seeing basically 50 to 100% of the time out there". He beat Crawford low on the glove side for his third career playoff goal and a 3-2 lead with 6:38 left. Game 5, which is now necessary, will be at Tampa Bay. St. Louis needed more than 10 seconds to score, but when Jaden Schwartz found the back of the net with less than seven minutes to go in the third, it gave the Blues a lead which they would hold for the win. The Blackhawks capitalized on one of those, and it was the very first shot of the game. The refs Dan O'Rourke and Chris Lee conferred and said it was a goal on the ice, and the people back in Toronto said it was good too, negating the Blues coach's challenge.Preview: It's time for someone to seize a bit of control. These are all things the Blackhawks can correct, and I'm not even sure they need to ideal all of them to beat the Blues in this series. The rest of this column was written as the game was going on, so these are my live thoughts during regulation. And the 2015 Blackhawks trailed their conference finals series against Anaheim and Stanley Cup Final series against Tampa Bay 2-1. Less than two minutes and a power play goal later, Jay Bouwmeester was whistled for hooking. "Whenever you can get on the board, you want to do it early...it's a positive". The Blues had chances to tie, as the line of Vladimir Tarasenko and Jori Lehtera was buzzing in the middle frame. Elliott has pushed aside 105 of 109 shots in this series and has a. 956 save percentage in his last five starts against Chicago.

The Blackhawks had a chance to build on their lead, but a shot by Andrew Ladd clanked both posts with 6:19 left in the period. While this group of Blackhawks might be missing some of the skill and speed of previous groups, they can still use these ideas to outmaneuver the Blues and their hard-hitting strategy.

"We looked like the Washington Generals a few times", said Hitchcock, evoking a little Harlem Globetrotters lore.

The Blues then made some puck luck. Chicago's Patrick Kane was clearly slashed on a breakaway with no call and Blues forward Robby Fabbri was given an embellishment penalty for being pushed to the ground. They don't care what's gone on in the past. "After that, we just kept going".

-Penalty killed, but the Blues got the important go-ahead goal.

-Kane. High sticking. Four-minute power play.

The Blues, now 2-for-8 on the power play in the series, survived their ill-timed penalties.

It helps that Elliott has been one of the Blues' best players through three games.

Elliott finished off the game by stopping the final 32 shots he faced.

Maybe it's because Elliott has never had anything close to this kind of success.

"Whatever's happened in years before, they're not the same team", Blackhawks goaltender Corey Crawford acknowledged following a 3-2 loss on Sunday afternoon.

Petr Mrazek got the shutout after replacing Jimmy Howard, who surrendered seven goals in the first two games of the series. I said to him, 'You may as well go and play because I'm exhausted of listening to you being in my ear.