Are the St. Louis Blues this good with the man advantage or are the San Jose Sharks just that bad? In the regular season, the Sharks ranked 29th in the league when it came to killing penalties and they certainly weren’t able to bailout their punished teammates on Monday.
The Blues converted on three of their four power-play opportunities and that’s the reason they came away with a 4-3 victory on Monday and took a 2-1 series lead.
“We’re not going to reinvent the wheel,” Sharks coach Todd McLellan said in reference to the team’s struggles when it comes to killing penalties. “We’re going to do what we do and we’re going to do it better.”
McLellan thinks Patrik Berglund’s goal on St. Louis’ first power-play attempt on Monday might have hurt them for the rest of the game.
“It affects your confidence and your ability to keep going,” McLellan said. “You can feel it a little bit on the bench.”
To San Jose’s credit, they did a much better job of containing the Blues’ power-play units in the first two contests. They’ll get a chance to bounce back in Game 4 on Thursday.