WESTERN QUARTER-FINALS
GAME SUMMARIES
GAME 7:
#1 DALLAS STARS vs #8 EDMONTON OILERS
Dallas wins 4-0
Next Game: Dallas advances to the next round vs St. Louis
#2 COLORADO AVALANCHE vs #7 SAN JOSE SHARKS
Colorado wins 4-2
Next Game: Colorado advances to the next round vs Detroit
#3 DETROIT RED WINGS vs #6 ANAHIEM MIGHTY DUCKS
Detriot wins 4-0
Next Game: Detroit advances to the next round vs Colorado
#4 PHOENIX COYOTES vs #5 ST. LOUIS BLUES
St. Louis wins 4-3
Next Game: St. Louis advances to the next round vs Dallas
It was a game that had to end the way it did, with the puck wobbling off Pierre Turgeon's stick and past weary Phoenix goaltender Nikolai Khabibulin after nearly 80 minutes of all-out hockey. Turgeon scored by deflecting a shot by Ricard Persson with 2:01 left in overtime, completing St. Louis' comeback from the edge of playoff elimination with a 1-0 victory over the Phoenix Coyotes in Game 7 Tuesday night.
He was quick to share the glory, especially with Grant Fuhr, who stopped 35 shots in his sixth playoff shutout and earned his 90th postseason victory. Only Colorado's Patrick Roy (102) has more.
"Everybody was involved," said Turgeon, who scored his second goal of the series. "Grant made some big saves for us, kept us in the game, and it was just a great way to win the series."
The Blues trailed the series 3-1, but won twice at Phoenix and once at home to take the series. The Blues, fifth in the Western Conference to Phoenix's fourth, advanced to play the rested Dallas Stars, who swept their series with Edmonton and haven't played since April 27.
Game 1 will be in Dallas on Thursday, and Game 2 will be Saturday.
Nikolai Khabibulin of Phoenix had 27 saves in regulation and seven more in overtime before Persson took a shot from the left circle and Turgeon changed its flight path toward the net.
It was the third overtime in the four games in Phoenix. The Blues won the last two. Scott Young, who had an assist for starting the play that led to Turgeon's second goal of the series, won Game 5 with an overtime goal.
Blues coach Joel Quenneville called the game unbelievable.
"What a thrill to be a part of it," he said. "I commend the Phoenix Coyotes for a tremendous series. They battled right to the end."
The victory marked St. Louis' second recovery from a 3-1 deficit this decade (1991) and sent it into the second round for the third time in the last four years.
It also perpetuated the Coyotes' string of playoff futility.
The former Winnipeg franchise has reached the second round only twice in 14 postseasons dating to 1982, and never in eight tries since 1987. This was the third time this decade that the Jets-Coyotes blew 3-1 leads.
The game also may have been the last for Phoenix coach Jim Schoenfeld, who said after the Blues tied the series with a 5-3 victory Sunday in St. Louis that he would stake his job on Game 7, then added, "But that's already been done."
"I don't think you had to be at ice level to see that they left it all out there tonight," Schoenfeld said. "One goal makes a hell of a difference."
The Coyotes were buoyed at the start by the return of sparkplug Jeremy Roenick, who missed the last two regular-season games and the first six of this series because of a broken jaw.
Roenick, who had 24 goals and 48 assists during the season, took the ice equipped with a sturdy faceguard attached to his helmet to protect his jaw.
Dallas defenseman Derian Hatcher shattered Roenick's jawbone with an elbow April 14. The All-Star center was able to return 20 days later because of a new dental-surgery technique that uses titanium plates to hold the bones together rather than wires.
"I think this is the time of year you have to suck things up," Roenick said.
But the Coyotes also lost defensemen Gerald Diduck and Keith Carney and left wing Greg Adams to injuries. Adams had to leave with a large gash in his forehead after Jamal Mayers, doing an inadvertent headstand when hit, kicked him in the face with his skate 5:21 into overtime.
After that, the Blues outskated the Coyotes and usually had the puck in Phoenix's end.
"They seemed to be getting tired," Geoff Courtnall said about the Coyotes. "They've had a really short bench all series, and I don't know if they started to run out of gas, but a lot of those guys had a lot of ice time."