Blues eliminated from Western Conference series

Blues eliminated from Western Conference series

ST. LOUIS, Missouri (AP): All the St. Louis Blues has for its 114-point regular-season championship is a worthless trophy.

Steve Shields rebounded from a shaky Game 6 with 21 saves as the San Jose Sharks tightened up on defense to eliminate the Blues in the first round of its Western Conference series with a 3-1 victory Tuesday night.

"It's great," Shields said. "This is what you play for. You want to be in these types of games."

Coach Darryl Sutter said his confidence never wavered in Shields, who was yanked after allowing five second-period goals Sunday in a 6-2 loss.

"I'm not a genius, but I knew how he was going to bounce back," Sutter said.

The Blues, which seemingly seized control on the road in Game 6, landed with a thud in the seventh game in its quest to become the 16th team in NHL history to rally from a 3-1 series deficit.

Coach Joel Quenneville bemoaned the Sharks' collection of ugly goals that put the Blues in a hole, topped by Owen Nolan's 19.8- meter (65-foot) drive at the end of the first period of Game 7 that somehow eluded goalie Roman Turek.

"I've never seen as many crazy goals as I have in this series," Quenneville said. "That's not an excuse, it's a fact."

Nolan, who made it 2-0 with 10.2 seconds to go in the period, knew this when he let fire.

"It's been a flukey series for goals," he said. "I thought why not just shoot it on net and see what happens? He bobbled it and it went in."

The Presidents' Trophy winners became only the second NHL regular-season champion to get knocked out in the first round, joining the 1991 Chicago Blackhawks. Since the Presidents' Cup was established in the 1985-86 season, only four of the 15 winners have gone on to win the Stanley Cup.

"Obviously, there was a lot of talk about us going a long way," right wing Scott Young said. "But you can never look past the first round. It's something that we didn't seem to mentally prepare for."

Ronnie Stern and Jeff Friesen also scored for the Sharks, which finished 27 points behind the Blues. This is its third major first-round upset in the nine-year franchise history, joining triumphs over No. 1 conference seed Detroit in 1994 and No. 2 Calgary in 1995.

The Sharks will face the Pacific Division champion Stars in the second round beginning Friday night at Dallas.

Young, who had a hat trick in Game 6, scored his sixth goal of the playoffs on a third-period power play for St. Louis.

This was the 14th first-round playoff exit for the Blues, which got off only six shots in the first period and five in the second to disappoint a sellout crowd of 20,418 - largest of the season. The Blues hasn't made it out of the second round since 1986.