St. Louis was flying high after the first two games of their series with Chicago. Now they leave Chicago with the series tied 2-2 after Chicago pulled off a 4-3 overtime victory on home ice last night. With the win, Chicago has once again proven that you haven’t lost until you’ve lost at home. Both Chicago and St. Louis now have gone 2-0 at home and 0-2 on the road.

After a quiet first period scoring wise where neither team was able to find the back of the net, Chicago jumped out to a 2-0 lead in the second on goals by Andrew Shaw and Patrick Kane. Things were looking good for Chicago who were holding that two goal lead with under two minutes to play in the second period. That’s when the Blues exploded, scoring two goals in the final 1:10 of the second period to tie the game 2-2 heading into the third period.

This was an important game for St. Louis, by losing both games on the road they would give Chicago new life in this series, which is a very dangerous thing to do against the defending Stanley Cup Champions. The third period saw each team exchange goals and we were off to overtime. In overtime, Patrick Kane capped off a great night scoring his second goal of the game midway through the first overtime period. Last night was the coming out party for Kane in this series as he had two goals and one assist.

St. Louis was feeling the effects of not closing out the Blackhawks when they had the chance. The late tying goal by Bryan Bickell was killer for them as they failed to shut the door on Chicago. Missed opportunities in the game were the flavor of the post-game conference held by Head Coach Ken Hitchcock.

"Where the game was lost was when we took it over and we're up 3-2 and we miss those four chances," Hitchcock said. "We could've been up [4-2 or 5-2]. We left it out there and got caught in our zone [on Bickell's goal] and then in the overtime goal we had chances to shoot the puck three times in the [offensive] zone and didn't put it on the net ... wanted to stickhandle one more time." (Courtesy of nhl.com)

The momentum has swung fully into Chicago’s favor at this point as they battled back to even this series up.

"They've got the momentum now," St. Louis coach Ken Hitchcock said. "We've got to take it back. We've got two of three at home, but we've got to take the momentum back…” (Courtesy of nhl.com)

Chicago has one thing St. Louis doesn’t as this series drags on, experience. Last night the line of Jonathan Toews, Patrick Kane and Andrew Shaw were difference makers. Moving forward the Blues cannot afford to lose game five on home ice, if they do there will likely be no game seven.

Tarasenko Flying

Vladimir Tarasenko has been something else in this series. With two goals last night, Tarasenko now has four goals in this series. His CF% Rel is an exceptional 10.9% through the first four games. In his rookie year he was electric but fell victim to the slumps of a long season, and this past year was saddled with injury problems. Tarasenko is flying right now, and will need to keep up the scoring if the Blues are going to have any chance of knocking out the Blackhawks.

Home Warriors

Both Chicago and St. Louis have seen success on home-ice in this series. The question now is can one of these teams find that same success on the road? In the playoffs teams who cannot win on the road do not go far. When you are on home-ice you have the last change and thus you get the matchups you want against the opposition. It can become a chess match between coaches as they try to get the right players on the ice at the right times. Some coaches are better at this then others, some ignore line matching completely. The latter situation often results in more losses than victories.

On home ice you also have the benefit of the crowd at your back. At any moment that crowd can fill players with energy and motivation. Players want to play great in front of their home town crowd, the elation and electricity of the playoffs is intense no matter where you play, it is tenfold when you are on home ice. This is why no lead is safe in the playoffs. Even if a team is down two goals at home, just the goal that pulls you within one instantly sets the roof on fire, it makes you believe as a player that victory is within reach.

It then comes down to the players. When they play on the road they have to go up against all of these factors, and it can be difficult. Some guys cannot find success in these circumstances and wilt under the pressure. We have seen both teams fail to battle through the road difficulties in this series and it is imperative now for one of these teams to turn the tables. The players need to find success against the best the opposition has to throw against them, they need to drown out the crowd, and they need to step up to the plate. Whichever team can find success on the road first will find themselves in round two of these Playoffs.