Los Angeles: Troy Brouwer came back to haunt his ex-teammates on Monday, scoring the decisive goal halfway through the third as the St. Louis Blues eliminated the defending Stanley Cup champion Chicago Blackhawks in seven games.
Brouwer, who won a Stanley Cup with the Blackhawks in 2010, was left alone in front of the Chicago net and banked a shot off the post before getting his own rebound and tapping it home to break a tie and lift the Blues to a 3-2 win.
It was Brouwer’s first goal of the series for the Blues, who needed seven games to earn their first opening round NHL play-off series win since 2012.
Brouwer, of Canada, is the only St. Louis player to have won a Stanley Cup and the only one to have played in more than two game sevens.
The last time the Blues won a game seven contest was 1999 when Blackhawks current coach Joel Quenneville was guiding their bench.
“This is a huge disappointment for me,” Quenneville said. “We had a sniff there. It was close. We were gambling a bit.
“We had the toughest matchup you could face in the first round. We had a tough draw and we didn’t get it done.”
Chicago’s loss means there won’t be a repeat Stanley Cup champion since the Detroit Red Wings did it in 1997 and 1998.
The visiting Blackhawks almost tied Monday’s game in front of a crowd 19,900 at Scottrade Center with four minutes to go when a shot by Andrew Shaw hit both posts but stayed out of the net.
After spotting the Blues an early 2-0 lead, the Blackhawks came back to tie the game on goals by Marian Hossa and Shaw.
The Blues built the early lead on goals from Jori Lehtera just one minute into the game and Colton Parayko at 13:43 of the first period.
Lehtera deflected a shot by Jay Bouwmeester past Chicago goalie Corey Crawford for his first career play-off goal. Parayko, of Canada, scored on a blast from the point while Swede Alexander Steen was screening Crawford in front of the net.
