Written by Pete Blackburn at FoxSports.com
The St. Louis Blues stole Game 1 of their opening round series with an overtime win on the road against the Wild on Wednesday night. Jake Allen’s ridiculous performance between the pipes was a big reason why.
The 26-year-old Blues goalie brought his A-game for the series opener, making a career-high 51 saves against the league’s second-best offense in Minnesota. The Wild outplayed St. Louis and led in a bunch of statistical categories — including shots, possession, face-offs, and hits. Minnesota actually doubled the Blues’ shot output 52-26, but Allen stifled the Wild and kept them off the board nearly all night long.
Allen had an up-and-down year in St. Louis. After a rough start to the season in which he went 17-13-3 with an ugly .895 save-percentage, he turned it around following the firing of head coach Ken Hitchcock on February 1st. After Hitchcock’s dismissal, Allen went 16-7-2 with a .938 save-percentage and three shutouts under Mike Yeo. The Blues had the league’s lowest goals-against-average during that time.
But heading into Game 1, doubters — including myself — wondered if that stretch was possibly just a fluke. Allen’s career playoff numbers before Wednesday hadn’t been great. He had a .902 save-percentage in 12 career postseason appearances, so it was fair to wonder whether he’d be the same goalie that we saw in the second half of the regular season.
Then he went and had 51 saves in a playoff game. Whoops.
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