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 Going home and moving on Blues hope to rebound after tough losses to Stars
Posted: Sunday May 09, 1999 04:08 PM
ST. LOUIS (AP) -- The St. Louis Blues are back in familiar playoff territory, trying to climb out of a hole. The Blues rallied from a 3-1 series deficit to beat the Phoenix Coyotes in the first round, and they now find themselves down 2-0 to the Dallas Stars. The second-round challenge appears tougher, since the Stars were No. 1 overall in the NHL in the regular season and enter Game 3 Monday night with a six-game playoff winning streak. St. Louis can take solace from forcing the Stars to overtime Saturday night. The Blues led 2-1 and 3-2 before falling on Joe Nieuwendyk's second goal of the game, in overtime. "We're going back home down 2-0, but we have to move on and think about the third game," Pierre Turgeon said. Coach Joel Quenneville felt his team deserved a lot better. "We had the higher quality chances, and we didn't capitalize at the right moments," Quenneville said. "Certainly we proved we've got a chance against these guys. It's not a hopeless situation." Dallas coach Ken Hitchcock wasn't crowing after Saturday night's 5-4 overtime victory, a game filled with odd-man rushes. "I just hope I never see another game like that again," Hitchcock said. "That was one revved-up hockey game." Blues goalie Grant Fuhr was thinking the same thing after giving up five goals on 25 shots. He said he should have stopped Nieuwendyk's goal, a high wrist shot at 8:22 of overtime. "Anytime we get four goals, we should win," Fuhr said. "We can take a positive from that, but the bottom line is that if I play better we win some games." Fuhr rebounded from his worst game in the first round. After giving up four goals in 12 shots in Game 3 against the Coyotes, he played well the rest of the way. "Fuhrsy is a competitive guy, and he knows his game pretty well," Quenneville said. "He'll bounce back from something like that. He'll be the guy when it counts, that's for sure." Nieuwendyk is savoring the playoff experience after missing all but one game last year with a knee injury. He had two goals and an assist in Game 2, along with other excellent chances, and is among the NHL leaders with five goals and two assists in the postseason. "I know it chewed him up inside that he wasn't a part of the playoff run last year," Hitchcock said. "He's making the most of it this year." Nieuwendyk's play made up for a dull night for the Stars' top line of Mike Modano, Brett Hull and Jere Lehtinen. "Things haven't panned out the way we wanted the last couple of games," said Modano, who played nearly 24 minutes Saturday without a shot. "But we can't get tied up in a numbers situation -- everybody else will do that for us -- instead of playing good, smart hockey." Turgeon had a strong game although he had been a doubtful starter after getting slashed on the back of the left knee by Pat Verbeek in Game 1. Verbeek and the Blues' Jamal Mayers, who took a retaliatory slash at Darryl Sydor, willl return Monday after serving one-game suspensions. The Blues prodded Pavol Demitra, their leading scorer in the regular season, into productivity by putting him on the fourth line with enforcers Tony Twist and Tyson Nash. Demitra, who had been a team-worst minus-4 in the playoffs, had two goals. St. Louis didn't practice Sunday after arriving home at about 3 a.m., concluding a stretch where they were on the road 26 of 34 days. Their flight was delayed when smoke filled the cabin before departure.
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