If you're the St. Louis Blues, how do you get over that?
The worst gut punch, kick in the crotch possible.
Less than two minutes away from eliminating the Presidents' Trophy winners in an epic Western Conference First Round series, the Blues suffered one the most heartbreaking losses in franchise history when Adam Lowry scored in double overtime to give the Winnipeg Jets an improbable 4-3 win in double overtime at Canada Life Centre on Sunday when Adam Lowry scored on a deflection with 3:50 remaining.
The Blues were in control of the game late in the third period before the Jets, who won the best-of-7 series 4-3, scored two 6-on-5 goals, including the tying goal from Cole Perfetti that tied it with under three seconds remaining in regulation that was the biggest gut punch the Blues could take in a game they led 3-1 with under two minutes left.
"Yeah, that one stinks. That one sucks," Blues captain Brayden Schenn said. "Just from two goal lead and two 6-on-5 goals against and a second and half away from closing out the series … sucks. It's brutal. We had a good group in there that played hard for one another all year, and there's no other words to really describe that one."
Jordan Kyrou, Mathieu Joseph and Radek Faksa scored goals fore the Blues, who led 2-0 in the first period and 3-1 after two periods before losing a third-period lead for the second time in this series and in this building. Jordan Binnington was outstanding making 43 saves.
The Blues were that close to becoming the first road team to win in the series, but alas, all seven games were won by the home team and close the Blues' season in gut-wrenching fashion.
"I've had a few painful ones," Blues coach Jim Montgomery said. "I've had overtime Game 7 losses. Anytime your season ends, it's painful."
Let's look at the Three Takeaways for the final time:
* The game -- and series -- was over ... until it wasn't because of the Blues' Achillies' heel this season: 6 on 5 defense -- The Blues had this game under control. Even though they spent the third period playing prevent defense, and you know how the saying goes: prevent defense prevents you from winning.
The Jets pulled Connor Hellebuyck with 3:14 remaining in the third period and the Blues were up 3-1.
Watching the video of this last 3:14, there were so many what-ifs.
It started fine, with a face-off win, chip into the neutral zone, then put down the ice. Then as the Jets try to enter the zone, there's another clear, and Robert Thomas is able to chip it the length of the ice.
So far, so good.
As the Jets retrieve and time is ticking, Justin Faulk gets to a puck behind the net, and instead of another flipper into the neutral zone, which worked the first couple times. But he banged it around and off the glass down the ice. Icing with 2:28 left.
You're still in good shape up 3-1, but there was a lost face-off, the Jets kept the zone, three puck retrievals, and it would up to Vladislav Namestnikov, who skated into the right circle and his shot or pass, caromed off the stick of either Schenn or Ryan Suter and in. It's 3-2 with 1:56 left.
Oh boy.
Now there's some work to do, and Binnington, who was outstanding in this game, outplaying his counterpart again, made a huge stop on Perfetti in close with 1:06 left that required a video review.
That was close.
Another D-zone face-off, and with the puck along the back wall, Thomas slams another puck around the wall, down the ice. Icing with 53.3 left.
Starting to really play with fire here. But yet again, Schenn won a D-zone draw. When you win this many face-offs, the job to get it done was in their hands.
But then probably the most inexplicable sequences in all this was Pavel Buchnevich. When Cam Fowler's clear caromed off a body to him in the middle of the ice in the zone, there was nobody around him. Take a few strides out of the zone, chip it in or he even had Thomas darting up the left wing, move the puck to him and there's a good chance at an empty-netter to seal it. But rather than any of those options, and sure, the game is so much faster on the ice that watching from up above or on a television set, Buchnevich fired the puck down the ice trying for the empty net and iced it instead with 46.6 remaining.
You could see Montgomery was not at all pleased with that decision.
But yet again, the Blues won the D-zone draw. That was not the problem. It should have been the proper start to executing closing a game out. And on that face-off win, Colton Parayko lobs the puck in the neutral zone. Time is ticking. Puck gets sent back in the Blues zone, but it's bobbled at the left point into the neutral zone. Still in good shape.
Puck back into the Blues zone, and Faulk has it on his stick, his backhand gets deflected. Parayko is there to collect it behind the net, but his slam around the boards doesn't get out of the zone. Puck gets played back into the corner with 16 seconds left. Parayko and Thomas can't win the wall battle. The puck skirts by Buchnevich to the left point to Nikolaj Ehlers, who fans on the point shot but it's retrieved by Lowry, who pushes it back to Ehlers.
Buchnevich and Schenn were too compacted in the middle of the ice, and Ehlers alertly found an open Kyle Connor in the right circle, and his shot/pass into the slot got redirected in by Perfetti in the waning seconds, 2.2 to be exact and the game is tied 3-3 instead of the Blues closing this thing out.
It was the latest game-tying goal in NHL history of a Game 7 in a playoff series.
"With the game-tying goal, he breaks a stick and we think we can get the puck and win the battle," Montgomery said. "Unfortunately we didn't and we're out of structure, and that's why there's an odd-man ... there's a 3-on-2 at the net. They whiffed on their one-timer and it went right to a guy in the slot. For whatever reason, puck-luck in this series, if you look at the home teams, the puck-luck was incredible. That's why I think you ended up with seven wins by the home teams."
Just an unbelievable last few minutes that reared the Blues' ugly head in 6-on-5 situations that was a sore spot throughout the season. Including the regular season, those were the 12th and 13th goals the Blues have allowed when defending the 6-on-5. It happened the last time the Blues lost at home, against the Jets ironically, on Feb. 22 when they fell 4-3 in a shootout after blowing a 3-2 lead with under a minute to play.
"It's an area of our team (6 on 5 goals against) that has not been good all year and it's an area I have to get better at so that our team is better next year at pulled goalie situations," Montgomery admitted.
When you play 58 minutes and have the series within your grasp, and an ongoing issue takes it away, it was going to be hard for the Blues to regroup.
* A great first period, got away from exceptional forecheck that got them lead -- The Blues started this game exactly the way they needed to: on the front foot and pushing the envelope.
They were the aggressors, they were winning the zone time, and they did exactly what they needed to do when the crowd is in a frenzy like that: score first and score early.
Jordan Kyrou's first even-strength point gave the Blues a 1-0 lead when they gained the zone, worked it right to left before Kyrou poked Parayko's return pass into an open net 1:10 into the game. Just the start the Blues had to have.
And they were still on the hunt and gave Winnipeg no time and space and limiting their possession time.
And then they took advantage of a turnover when Mathieu Joseph made it 2-0 at 7:16 when he took advantage of a Connor turnover in the neutral zone and beat Hellebuyck short side from the top of the left circle with Josh Morrissey defending, a very stoppable shot.
Now they had a 2-0 lead, the building was quiet and the Blues were playing the right way.
The period ended with them leading 2-0, shots were 7-3. The Jets had just eight shot attempts in total. It was the perfect plan.
"We're playing good, I think, just getting pucks deep, just playing over top of their players," Parayko said.
Until it wasn't the perfect plan.
Sure, the Jets were going to push back, but again, inexplicably, they stopped forechecking, and slowly but surely, the Jets were gaining momentum because the Blues started to get away from what they were doing so well.
"I didn't like the first 10 minutes of the second," Montgomery said. "I liked the last 10. I thought the first period was pretty good. I didn't like how we sat back with our checking. I didn't think we were as tenacious as we needed to be."
* Not taking advantage of Jets missing top forward, top defenseman after injury -- When Morrissey left the game after the Joseph goal, the Jets played the rest of the game with five defensemen.
Already without top-line center Mark Scheifele, and now without their top defenseman in Morrissey, it was an opportunity for the Blues to take advantage and again, do what they do best with a forecheck and wear down a group of five defensemen that by night's end would have to play high and heavy minutes.
But instead, that prevent mode cost the Blues dearly. They held a 16-14 shots edge through two periods. But from the third period on, they were outshot 34-13. The Jets seemingly had the puck a lot more and the Blues looked like the team that was wearing down despite Winnipeg being a man down in the game for the final four periods and without their top playmaker.
"I thought we had opportunities to make plays and we didn't," Montgomery said. "We forced a little too much offense and didn't spend enough O-zone time in the first overtime. The second overtime we were a little bit better."
* Bonus takeaway: the 'WTF' Line is special -- Regardless of how much the loss hurts, watching Radek Faksa, Nathan Walker and Alexey Toropchenko throughout this series, and again in Game 7, was a treat.
That line epitomized how the Blues needed to play each and every shift it was on the ice.
It seemed like when they were on the ice, pucks were going deep and they were going to work, checking, grinding, working O-zone time, and when Faksa put the Blues up 3-1 when they pounced on a neutral zone turnover for a 3-on-2, and Faksa finished off a Walker cross ice pass into the left circle and ensuing shot over Hellebuyck's glove hand (again) with 34.1 left in the second period, it almost felt like the dagger goal.
Almost.
Walker played 23:04 and led the Blues with nine hits, had the assist and was a plus-1; Faksa played 22:51, scored, was a plus-1 and won 56 percent of his face-offs; and Toropchenko played 20:58 and was a plus-1 with five hits.
That line finished the series with 13 points (six goals, seven assists) and gave it all it had, and then some.
