ST. LOUIS — There was a time when St. Louis head coach Ken Hitchcock would have defended his way to a series win tonight. But on the morning of the first possible clinching game in this Round 2 series, the old coach was instead preaching offence.
What changed?
“I had a bunch of old farts in Dallas, and I had no choice,” he said of the Stars team he coached to a Stanley Cup in 1999. “The game’s changed now. You can’t play the game on three-quarter ice, you have to play on our toes.
“The only way to play defence is to occupy the offensive zone. You can’t play defence counter-attacking or backing up. There are no hold ups anymore, per se.”
With the Blues on home ice with a chance to vanquish the Stars and make their first trip to a Western Conference Final since 2001, Hitchcock made a small tweak on his defence, adding the more offensive-minded Robert Bortuzzo and scratching the defence-first Joel Edmundson.
“Bortuzzo is an attacking player. He’s good at joining the rush and making plays from the red line in. Eddie’s more of a defending player. A stay-at-home kind of guy,” Hitchcock said. “Our feeling is, it’s a skating series. We need to have as much puck control as we can. Numbers on attack.
“We’ve probably got to add a little bit of risk to our game if we’re going to be better offensively. We think we’ve got to create more scoring chances.”
By our eye, the old Hitch would have done exactly the opposite.
“In Dallas we had such a high hockey IQ, we could wait it out. We had patience. We trusted the fact that we could wait you ‘til the 55th minute and beat you,” he said. “You can’t play that way anymore. You’ve got to go for it.
“We’re not going to add a bunch of goofy risks, but we’ve got skating people right now.”
This series has been a tug of war when it comes to styles, with Dallas wanting an end-to-end game with as many odd-man rushes as possible, while St. Louis’ game is more about playing in the Dallas zone. If it’s taking the Stars two or three tries to exit their zone, then you’re seeing a game being played to the Blues’ liking.
In the Dallas lineup for Game 6, right-winger Patrick Eaves is being labelled a “game time decision” by head coach Lindy Ruff. He took a shot and limped off in Game 1, and hasn’t returned to this series. The Stars have missed him, especially on the power play.
“I don’t think there’s anyone better in the league in the middle of the ice on the power play than him,” said Stars defenceman Alex Goligoski. “He’s so good at knowing where to put the puck, the positions to get in. You get so much more zone time.”
Eaves has 13 goals this season — nine in the regular season and two in the playoffs. Seven of those came on the power play. The Dallas power play is 1-for-16 in this series, so his return could be a difference maker for them.
“He really backs off penalty killers, because they know that outlet in the middle is always there,” Goligoski said. “You can’t just run out at Sharp, Spezza or Klingberg.”
Dallas is 3-2 on the road in these playoffs, and earned a split here in St. Louis in Games 1 and 2. The Blues, meanwhile, jumped a huge hurdle when they closed out the defending Cup champion Chicago Blackhawks in this building in Game 7 of Round 1.
They feel like they know how to close out a series now.
Puck drop is at 7 pm Central.
