Speculation was rampant as to when the Blues would start the second round against the Dallas Stars. Thursday was where the smart money was, and Thursday it shall be. It’s good scheduling, because there’s no Cardinals game downtown for conflict or traffic. However, because it’s the NHL, there’s also a scheduling problem. While the day is perfect, the time is... less than so. The game is scheduled to start at 8:30 Central. Puck drop should be closer to 8:45. Barring overtime (God forbid), fans should be leaving the Enterprise Center between 11 and 11:30. Why are two teams based in the Central Division starting at an atrocious time? Game one of the Columbus Blue Jackets/Boston Bruins series is scheduled for 7:00 pm, so by virtue of scheduling the Blues/Stars game is the late one. If you’re a fan in the Eastern time zone (such as your’s truly), just go on and get the strong coffee out for the morning and pray for a regulation Blues win. Pray hard.<doc-sep>DALLAS (AP) — When first-year Dallas Stars coach Jim Montgomery called out his team over a “culture of mediocrity” in January, the St. Louis Blues weren’t too far removed from having the worst record in the NHL. Now the Central Division rivals will meet in the second round of the playoffs – and Montgomery is ready to move on from his scathing critique, while declaring that the culture has changed. ”If you’re in that locker room, you see the culture now,” Montgomery after the Stars beat Nashville 2-1 in overtime in Game 6 on Monday to finish off the first-round series. ”You see how much more professional we are. We work efficiently. We work effectively. And we work together. ”We’re going to be eight of 31 teams left, right? We’re doing something right. But we hope not to be done. But we know we’re facing a really good team next, again.” The Blues went from having a league-worst 34 points on Jan. 2 to becoming the first team that was last in the NHL at the beginning of the calendar year to advance in the postseason. Montgomery’s blunt assessment came after a 3-1 loss to St. Louis when the Blues were beginning to dig out of their hole. The Dallas turnaround started a week later with the beginning of a five-game winning streak that bridged the All-Star break. A year after collapsing late in the regular season with an eight-game losing streak that started with six straight losses on the road, the Stars picked up seven of eight possible points on a four-game Canadian swing late in the season to all but wrap up their first playoff berth in three years. That most recent playoff trip in 2016 ended with a Game 7 loss in the second round to the Blues in Dallas. ”We had a lot of changes this year and a lot of uncomfortable conversations throughout the year,” said Tyler Seguin, the high-scoring forward who was injured when the Blues and Stars met three years ago. ”Guys came out of their comfort zones and that’s made us a closer team and that’s why we’re here tonight.” The last rookie coach to win his first playoff series was Dale Hunter with Washington seven years ago. And Montgomery is the second Stars coach to do it, following Dave Tippett in 2003. An NCAA championship winner at the University of Denver two years ago, Montgomery was also the third coach in three seasons for the Stars. He followed Lindy Ruff and Ken Hitchcock, who returned to Dallas and missed the 2018 playoffs, 19 years after leading the franchise to its only Stanley Cup title. [NBC 2019 STANLEY CUP PLAYOFF HUB] ”I think the journey through the year toughens you up, hopefully,” Montgomery said. ”And it definitely did for us. You have to face adversity to get better as a group, especially when it’s your first time together. And we have. And the trust has grown.” Ben Bishop, a Vezina Trophy finalist who had a playoff career-high 47 saves to finish off the Predators, will be facing his hometown team, and the one that drafted him 14 years ago. ”I’ve been trying not to think about it, obviously trying to worry about this series,” Bishop said. ”It kind of gets a smile.” The Blues and Stars were the lower seeds in their first-round matchups. St. Louis beat Winnipeg, also in six games. If Vegas wins Game 7 at San Jose in the remaining first-round Western Conference series Tuesday night, all four lower seeds will have advanced. ”If you look around the league, I think everyone who gets into the playoffs has a really good chance to go win,” said John Klingberg, who scored the clincher 17:02 into overtime . ”You see a lot of top seed teams that are out right now.” A couple of weeks before Montgomery’s frustration boiled over, Seguin and captain Jamie Benn were profanely ripped by CEO Jim Lites. The longtime team executive also used words such as ”terrible” and ”embarrassing” to describe the play of the high-priced forwards. The concern for Lites, who said he was echoing the frustration of owner Tom Gaglardi, was that the Stars would end up in danger of missing the playoffs for the ninth time in 11 years. Instead, they wrapped up a series on home ice for the first time since 2008. ”We are very excited about this, and you can tell the crowd is too,” Klingberg said. ”We’ve been playing some good hockey here at the end. It’s going to be a quick turnaround here. We all know how the Blues are playing, how good they are.” Neither team was saying that when the calendar turned to 2019. — More AP NHL: https://apnews.com/NHL and https://twitter.com/AP-Sports<doc-sep>The Stars came out on top in an overtime goalie battle to advance to the second round, while Carolina kept its playoff hopes alive and forced a Game 7 with the Capitals. The underdog prevails yet again. With its playoff hopes on the line in overtime, Nashville was hoping to force a Game 7. But instead it became the latest victim of the first-round upsets that have been trending this postseason, as the Stars eliminated the Predators with a 2–1 Game 6 win. In a game that turned into a battle between Pekka Rinne and Ben Bishop, Dallas’s John Klingberg would be the one to solve the puzzle with a beauty of a wrister 17:02 into overtime. Nashville got off to another quick start, unleashing 19 shots in the first period, one of those giving the team the early lead when P.K. Subban took a shot from the point and Austin Watson was there to send home the rebound. Dallas equalized it in the second and then it turned into a goalie show. Both stretched and flashed their gloves to make impressive saves, particularly in a third-period track meet that could have caused whiplash. The Stars came out fast to start that frame, with Esa Lindell ringing a shot off the post early in the period. Dallas kept the pressure on Rinne, but Nashville responded with several chances of its own. Both sides had odd-man rushes and breakaways aplenty, but Bishop and Rinne were locked in. Nashville, which hadn’t scored a power-play goal all postseason, was granted another chance with the man advantage with less than two minutes left when Blake Comeau was called for tripping. But it wouldn’t be the moment the regular season’s worst power play broke through, so this one needed extra time. The Predators join the Lightning and Flames as regular season division champions to be ousted in the opening round, and the Islanders remain the lone higher seed to win its first-round series so far. The Stars will play the Blues in the only second-round series that is set as of Monday night. DAL wins series 4–2 | Box Score | Full Recap HURRICANES 5, CAPITALS 2 Home ice proved crucial yet again in this series as the Hurricanes made the first lead change of the series to force a Game 7, but the win didn’t come without at least a little bit of controversy along the way. The Capitals had control early on with Brett Connolly scoring five minutes into the game, picking up the puck along the boards behind the net and skating around untouched to go top shelf on Petr Mrazek. Warren Foegele (because who else?) tied it up a few minutes later just after a power play expired, grabbing up a rebound and doing a little spin move from the high slot that went right past Braden Holtby. Alex Ovechkin regained Washington’s lead with 4:48 left in the first, picking up the puck in transition and firing it around a sliding Jaccob Slavin, then breaking out into an enthusiastic celebration, but his enthusiasm would later grow into frustration. With Carolina leading 3–2 in the third thanks to goals from Teuvo Teravainen and Jordan Staal, the Capitals thought they had evened it back up when Evgeny Kuznetsov put a shot on net and Ovechkin poked it through. But the goal was immediately waved off. Washington challenged and the call was upheld because of goaltender interference, though this was not explained by the on-ice officials. Justin Williams scored an insurance goal shortly after with a deflection that went five-hole on Holtby and Dougie Hamilton got an empty-netter to close it out and send this back to Washington, where the Canes will try to break another series pattern and be the first to win on the road. Series tied 3–3 | Box Score | Full Recap HIGHLIGHT OF THE NIGHT This was one of the many saves made (on both ends of the ice) in the third period that sent this game to overtime. Colton Sissons put the moves on Bishop, who had to look back to make sure the puck didn’t go in the net. THREE STARS 1. Ben Bishop, DAL — The Stars didn’t have the fastest starts for the majority of this series (and the regular season for that matter), but Bishop was there to keep them in it while his offense warmed up. He had a playoff career-high 47 saves for Dallas in Game 6. 2. Pekka Rinne, NSH — It certainly wasn’t the ending Rinne had in mind, but the 2018 Vezina winner stopped 49 shots, a playoff best for the netminder. 3. John Klingberg, DAL — If there were any moment to score your second-ever playoff goal, in overtime to clinch a series sounds like a good time.<doc-sep>
The last time that the Blues and the Dallas Stars met in the playoffs, it was a long slog through seven games. Fresh (though not really that fresh) off of a long series against the Chicago Blackhawks, the Stars pushed the Blues to the brink until St. Louis polished Dallas off 6-1. It wasn’t an easy series, and the punishment of those seven games may be why the Blues didn’t make it past the San Jose Sharks in the Western Conference final. The Blues’ regular season redemption story is one for the record books - from worst to playoffs. They’re also the first team to accomplish that and then win a playoff round. The Stars fought for a bit of the season to get into the playoffs as a comfortable Wild Card, and then were the decided underdog against the Central Division champion Nashville Predators. Instead of forcing a game seven, Nashville was sent packing last night. So here we are, Blues/Stars, round two. The third place team versus the first wild card. This series is going to be a lot harder than some people expect, for both teams. It has yet to be determined if Stars CEO Jim Lites still believes that Jamie Benn and Tyler Seguin are “fucking horseshit,” but Seugin finished with 33 goals and 80 points to lead the team, and Benn finished with 27 goals and 53 points. So far these playoffs Seguin has two goals and six points, and Benn has just one goal and three points. Alexander Radulov seems to be the Star to contain, but they have a lot of high powered players who have been a thorn in the Blues’ side. Last season, the Stars took the series 3-1, with two of those games coming after the team’s resurgence. On March second, Benn had a hat trick against Jordan Binnington in the Stars’ 4-1 victory, and Benn scored twice on February 21st to end the Blues’ 11 game winning streak. Anything can happen in the playoffs, but this is going to be a tough road for the Blues. If they play like they did on Saturday night, they should be fine - but hopefully it won’t take being behind the eight ball to get them to do it.