DENVER — There was no quit in the St. Louis Blues in Game 5 of the Western Conference Second Round at Ball Arena on Wednesday, no matter how many times the Colorado Avalanche thought they had instilled it.
Forward Tyler Bozak finished an improbable comeback for the Blues at 3:38 of overtime in a 5-4 win that extended their season and shifted the best-of-7 series back to St. Louis for Game 6 on Friday.
“A resilient group of guys, [who] got down and didn’t want the season to be over,” Bozak said. “Fought hard, got some big goals late. [I] was lucky enough to be on the end of the one in overtime.”
Colorado had a chance to advance to the Western Conference Final for the first time since 2002 but surrendered a 3-0 lead with less than 27 minutes remaining in regulation, and a 4-3 lead after Nathan MacKinnon scored a highlight-reel goal with 2:46 left.
“It was an amazing hockey game,” Bozak said. “I’m sure everyone that was watching thought the same thing. Obviously, MacKinnon’s one of the best players in the League and makes plays in crucial moments and did it there, but we have great leadership on our team.”
[RELATED: Complete Avalanche vs. Blues series coverage]
It was a steep climb after Gabriel Landeskog‘s goal gave the Avalanche a 3-0 lead at 4:02 of the second period. That should have been enough against most teams, but not these Blues, who have 10 players remaining from the 2019 team that won the Stanley Cup in a seven-game series against the Boston Bruins.
St. Louis had not rallied from three goals down in the postseason since 1998, a 4-3 win against the Los Angeles Kings in Game 3 of that first-round series. It had only been done four times in Blues history.
But Vladimir Tarasenko cut it to 3-1 at 14:42 of the second, his first goal of the second round. Robert Thomas, who scored 20 goals during the regular season, got his first of the Stanley Cup Playoffs at 9:57 of the third period to make it 3-2.
Jordan Kyrou tied it 3-3 at 15:14.
But there was MacKinnon again, trying to punch the Avalanche’s ticket to the third round for the first time in his nine-year career. He took the puck in his own end, turned on the afterburners, made a remarkable move to deke defenseman Nick Leddy and lifted a shot that hit off the arm of goalie Ville Husso and under the crossbar to finish his hat trick and seemingly seal the game.
The home crowd was going wild while the ice crew tried to gather the avalanche of hats cascading onto the ice. Blues coach Craig Berube called timeout to refocus his staggered team one last time.
“Yeah, it’s tough,” Berube said of the moments after MacKinnon’s goal. “We battle back and then we give up that goal like that. It could be really deflating, but our team has got a lot of guts and they’re a resilient bunch of guys. I thought they were positive. We talked about what we were going to do with the goalie and stuff, and it ended up working out.”
Video: Bozak’s overtime Game 5 winner spoils MacKinnon hatty
Thomas scored his second of the game with 56 seconds left in the third and Husso pulled for an extra attacker, converting the rebound of a Tarasenko shot that had caromed off Darcy Kuemper‘s mask and laid tantalizingly unattended just outside the crease.
“You’ve got nothing to lose, so you might as well throw it all out there,” Thomas said. “I think that was our mentality. It seemed to work tonight.”
It certainly did for Bozak, who did not see the ice for the final 9:16 of the third after the Blues shortened their bench. But Berube played a hunch when he sent out his fourth line (Bozak, Ivan Barbashev and Nathan Walker) in the fourth minute of overtime.
St. Louis is the first team to score two game-tying goals in the final five minutes of regulation when facing elimination. The only other team to do so in any NHL playoff game was the Buffalo Sabres in Game 1 of the 2006 Eastern Conference Semifinals against the Ottawa Senators.
“That one feels good obviously, but there’s still a lot of work to be done,” Bozak said. “We’ve got to refocus and get ready for the next game.”
George is Digismak’s reported cum editor with 13 years of experience in Journalism