ST. LOUIS (AP) -- The St. Louis Blues thought they were ready for the big time. Then they ran into the Detroit Red Wings.
"They put us in our place," checking center Craig Conroy said. "It was a humbling experience.
Just when the Blues appeared to be getting new life, the Red Wings blitzed them out of the playoffs with an avalanche of goals. Martin LaPointe scored twice in the second period, Steve Yzerman had a goal and three assists and the defending Stanley Cup champions scored three times on a previously anemic power play to advance to the Western Conference finals with a 6-1 Game 6 victory Tuesday night.
The Red Wings won all three games in St. Louis, muffling a sellout crowd of 20,591 in the finale, to eliminate the Blues for the third straight season and set up a matchup with the Dallas Stars.
The Red Wings continued a trend of strong play by road teams in the playoffs. Visiting teams won exactly one half of the 66 games in the first two rounds.
"To do well in the playoffs, you have to win on the road," Yzerman said. "Home ice just isn't as important as it's made out to be."
The Red Wings also beat the Blues in six games in the first round of the playoffs last year, and in seven games in the second round two years ago.
NHL playoff scoring leader Sergei Fedorov, who earned a $12 million bonus for the Red Wings advancing to the conference finals, got a second-period assist for his 15th point. Darren McCarty and Tomas Holmstrom also scored for Detroit.
Fedorov's humongous payday wasn't much of a topic in the Red Wings' dressing room.
"We didn't even talk about it," coach Scotty Bowman said. "It's something I would prefer not be in the media. Our players knew he'd help us in this series."
Even Fedorov downplayed the significance of the massive influx of cash.
"You can't control what people make out of things," Fedorov said. "I focused on my hockey."
Yzerman, who had a goal and seven assists in the series, has 16 points in the playoffs -- one more than Fedorov. He made it 6-0 at 9:40 of the third.
Chris Osgood also had a strong game for the Red Wings before Jim Campbell broke the shutout bid with 5:25 to play on a power play for his seventh goal of the playoffs. Osgood didn't have to worry much about Brett Hull, who was silenced again with two shots.
It could have been Hull's last appearance in a Blues' uniform, along with some other veterans. Hull, who can be an unrestricted free agent this summer along with Al MacInnis, Steve Duchesne and Geoff Courtnall, had one goal in the series.
Blues general manager Larry Pleau is expected to address the free-agent situation on Thursday.
"It's not even on my mind right now," Hull said. "All I've been thinking about is the playoffs. We'll think about the other stuff later. There's plenty of time."
Duchesne hoped the Blues would re-sign him.
"I'd love to be back," Duchesne said. "But it's out of my control. We'll see."
Blues goaltender Grant Fuhr was chased from the net after allowing five goals on 22 shots. Jamie McLennan replaced him after Holmstrom scored at 5:53 of the third off a feed from Yzerman.
The Blues hadn't lost three in a row at home since Dec. 13-19, 1996, but they also came up flat at the Kiel Center in Games 3 and 4. Detroit won 3-2 in double overtime in Game 3 and 5-2 in Game 4 before the Blues rallied with a 3-1 victory in Detroit in Sunday to force Game 6.
Detroit gets a few days off before the conference finals begin on Sunday at Dallas, No. 1 in the regular season. The Red Wings were 2-1-2 against the Stars.
The Red Wings had been 3-for-35 with the man advantage before getting goals from Doug Brown, making his first appearance of the playoffs after recovering from a separated shoulder, and LaPointe. The Red Wings were 3-for-5 on the power play.
The team scoring first won all except one game in the series, and McCarty gave Detroit the early edge when he scored his third goal of the playoffs at 12:08 of the first period. McCarty, who also got the first goal in Game 3 in St. Louis, fought through two Blues players after a faceoff in the St. Louis zone and beat Fuhr with a quick shot.
"You saw what happened when teams got ahead," Bowman said. "It made the other team look ordinary."
The Blues had been carrying the play to that point.
"The next thing you know, it got out of hand," Conroy said. "It was the other way around in Detroit."
Brown zipped past Blair Atcheynum on the left side after taking a pass from Yzerman and made it 2-0 at 14:29.
LaPointe scored on the rebound of a drive by Nicklas Lidstrom on a power play at 5:03. He got his career-best fifth goal of the playoffs at 7:56 off another Yzerman feed, skating alone across the blue line before beating Fuhr with a shot to the stick side.
