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BOX SCORE
SAN JOSE, Calif. (AP) -- Call it a fluke. Call it a stroke of
luck. Most of all, call it what it was -- a surprising, dramatic
game-winning shot.
|  | | Sharks goalie Steve Shields flops onto the puck for a full-body, first-period save. |
Gary Suter's slap shot from just inside the blue line skipped into the net with 8:37 remaining and the San Jose Sharks beat the
St. Louis Blues 3-2 Wednesday night to take a 3-1 lead in their playoff series.
"I think we have to be taken seriously now," San Jose's Tony Granato said. "We got a good bounce, but what the heck? It's still a goal. In hockey, there are not many pretty goals but they all
count. It's getting harder every game to get the win and we'll take
any goal, whether it bounces in or not.
The best-of-seven series moves back to St. Louis on Friday for
Game 5 with the top-seeded Blues, who finished the regular season
with the NHL's best record, on the brink of elimination. But
they've fought back from a 3-1 deficit as recently as last season,
when they came back to beat Phoenix 4-3 in a first-round series.
"Everybody expects when you finish first that it would be easy,
but we knew otherwise," St. Louis' Pierre Turgeon said. "We felt
all along that they're a better team than they showed in the
regular season.
"I felt once we weathered the storm and scored our power-play
goal, that would turn things around. We're getting the puck to the
net but we're not getting the bounce. We need to take a page out of
last year's book and hope to get some bounces. We're certainly
frustrated. It's not easy to come back from 3-1 all the time but we
did it last year and we hope to do it again."
San Jose, 0-4-1 in five regular season meetings against the
Blues, is one win from duplicating its 1994 feat, when it ousted
Detroit in a first-round series as a No. 8 seed.
The winning shot was set up when Alexander Korolyuk threw the puck across the ice and it bounded off the boards to Suter, who
wound up for a slap shot near the blue line. The puck took a bounce
off the ice and shot between goalie Roman Turek's stick-side arm and his leg.
"It looked like a knuckleball. Boom, boom, it was in," St.
Louis coach Joel Quenneville said.
Added Suter: "It looked like a trick shot. We've gotten some
lucky bounces throughout these games. It dipped when it hit the ice
and bounced about two feet up and went in. It changed directions on
him."
St. Louis pulled its goalie with 1:26 left to no avail.
Down 2-0, the Blues tied it by scoring twice in a 36-second span
of the second period. With the Blues on the power play, Turgeon got
off a pass to the unguarded Jochen Hecht and Hecht wristed the puck
past goalie Steve Shields from just outside the crease at 12:54 for his third goal of the playoffs.
Just a few seconds later, St. Louis evened it. Jamal Mayers got
off a shot that Shields stopped but before he could cover up the
rebound, Mike Eastwood skated in and put the puck in the net for
his first goal of the series.
St. Louis had a chance to take the lead in the final seconds of
the period, but Scott Young's shot at the end of a breakaway hit
the right post and bounced away.
San Jose went up 2-0 on Mike Ricci's second goal of the series 1:37 into the second. Stephane Matteau picked up the puck in St.
Louis' zone after a Blues turnover and dished off to Ricci. He
skated toward the goal and faked a cross-ice pass to Niklas
Sundstrom, getting Turek leaning toward the opposite end before
slipping the puck into the corner of the net.
San Jose's first goal was set up by a battle along the boards.
Mike Rathje and Chris Pronger both were scrambling for the puck
when it popped loose and dribbled into the left faceoff circle.
Rathje spun around the defender and knocked the puck toward Sturm,
who got enough of his stick on it to drive the puck past Turek for
the score 6:08 into the game.
Both teams managed only five shots during the opening period,
with the Sharks going 0-for-3 on the power play and St. Louis
failing to get a shot until 7:04 left. Shields stopped Turgeon's
shot from up close by throwing out his left leg to block it.
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ALSO SEE
NHL Scoreboard
St. Louis Clubhouse
San Jose Clubhouse
RECAPS
Ottawa 2
Toronto 1
Washington 3
Pittsburgh 2
Detroit 3
Los Angeles 0
Phoenix 3
Colorado 2
San Jose 3
St. Louis 2
AUDIO/VIDEO
 The Sharks get another lucky bounce with this goal.
avi: 531 k
RealVideo: 56.6 | ISDN | T1
Pierre Turgeon feeds Jochen Hecht for the goal.
avi: 481 k
RealVideo: 56.6 | ISDN | T1
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