Brouwer, Brodziak braces boost Blues level with Sharks
Kyle Brodziak and Troy Brouwer each scored two goals and the St. Louis Blues defeated host San Jose 6-3 Saturday to level the National Hockey League Western Conference finals. The Blues pulled even at 2-2 in the best-of-seven matchup, which continues Monday at St. Louis and Wednesday in San Jose. The Sharks-Blues winner will face the Eastern Conference champion, either Tampa Bay or Pittsburgh, in the Stanley Cup Finals. After being outscored 7-0 in the previous two games, the Blues had to change the tone quickly and did just that, Troy Brouwer netting his sixth goal of the playoffs on a power play just 6:14 into the first period. Finnish center Jori Lehtera boosted the Blues' lead to 2-0 just 3:57 later on an unassisted goal and the visitors were silencing spectators at the "Shark Tank." "When you've just got to step up and play with a higher level of emotion, you can't just talk about it. You have to have people show you the way," Blues coach Ken Hitchcock said of Brouwer and Brodziak. "They are very good players. Know what the emotional level is. Know another gear. They found it. This is a big step. This is catching our game again." Brodniak scored his first two goals of the playoffs in the second period, adding to San Jose's misery. The first came on a short-handed tally 6:09 into the period off a pass from Jaden Schwartz and the next by the 31-year-old Canadian center came 4:02 later at even strength on Russian right wing Dmitrij Jaskin's first assist of the playoffs. Brodniak had scored only three goals in 44 prior playoff games. San Jose cracked the scoreboard 65 seconds into the third period when Joe Pavelski scored his 10th goal of the playoffs. But Brouwer answered with a power-play goal only 2:55 later to give St. Louis a 5-1 edge. His only prior two-goal playoff game came for eventual champion Chicago in a 6-5 win over Philadelphia in game one of the 2010 Stanley Cup Final. Chris Tierney pulled back another for San Jose with 13:03 remaining in regulation time but when the Sharks pulled goaltender James Reimer for an extra attacker in a comeback bid, Alex Pietrangelo added an empty-net goal for the Blues. Swedish center Melker Karlsson added a final goal for San Jose with 3:32 to play but it was too little and too late. "We didn't execute tonight. We got burned," Sharks coach Peter DeBoer said. "We got what we deserved because of our execution. "We've had one or two of these games throughout the playoffs and we've always responded the right way. We'll get it fixed."
