St. Louis Blues coach Ken Hitchcock made a change to his team hoping to shift the momentum of the Western Conference Finals. He succeeded.
Behind new goaltender Jake Allen, the Blues routed the San Jose Sharks with a 6-3 win in Game 4 that tied the series at 2-2. Allen, who replaced Brian Elliott in net as the starter for the first time in the playoffs, made 31 saves for the win. Blues grinder Kyle Brodziak cashed in with his first two goals of the playoffs.
Blues winger Troy Brouwer spent much of the last two games frustrated by a scoring touch that abandoned him. After avoiding a penalty early in the first period, Brouwer scored on a Blues power play to give his team the first lead of the game.
San Jose then wasted one of the best saves of the playoffs:
That was Jori Lehtera's third goal of the playoffs, and the second of multiple times in the first period that Jones was pulled out of position.
The Blues piled on in the second period. An errant pass from Joe Thornton on the power play led to a 2-on-1 breakaway shorthanded goal for Brodziak. Sharks coach Pete DeBoer benched Jones in favor of James Reimer, who promptly gave up a one-timer goal to Brodziak eight minutes into the second period.
Down by four goals, the Sharks came out with fire in the third. Thornton redeemed himself with a beautiful saucer pass to Joe Pavelski, who scored his tenth goal of the playoffs, a new Sharks franchise record. The comeback was short-lived: Brouwer scored again minutes later to give the Blues a commanding 5-1 lead.
San Jose got two goals late (thanks to a shot from Chris Tierney and an own goal for Blues defenseman Carl Gunnarsson), but an empty-netter from Alex Pietrangelo finished off the 6-3 victory.