Pat Maroon on His Game-Winner: “It Hasn’t Hit me Yet”

The St. Louis Blues have brought back the home-ice advantage after defeating the Dallas Stars in Game 3 tonight, at the American Airlines Center. The final result was 4-3 for the guests, who won their fourth consecutive match on the road in these playoffs.

Patrick Maroon clinched this victory with a late goal in the third period, which might be the most important one in the whole series.

When asked about the fact that his team has just two triumphs at home since the start of the postseason, and that they play much better on the road, coach Craig Berube didn’t have a proper explanation.

“I can’t explain it. We’ve been a good road team all year,” Blues coach said.

And really, it appears that the Blues are playing far better away from the Enterprise Center. Whether is that because of lack of pressure or some other kind of motivation, we don’t quite know, but the fact is that they post excellent results.

Jaden Schwartz indicated to the fans that this isn’t going to be a nice night for them after only 97 seconds of play. He changed the path of Colton Parayko’s shot.

With 2:48 until the end of the first, Alexander Radulov tied the score, on a powerplay.

Tyler Bozak made it 2-1 for the guests, after eight and a half minutes into the second quarter when he reacted very fast and placed the puck behind Ben Bishop who previously denied Robert Thomas’ shot.

Dallas equalized through Andrew Cogliano, and after that, we once again saw the same scenario in which St. Louis gets the lead, and the hosts match it. The scorers were Alex Pietrangelo for the Blues, and on the other side Miro Heiskanen.

With 1:28 left in the entire game, guests from Missouri struck for the last time in this contest. It was Maroon who took the loose puck and managed to put it across the goal line, from a tough position behind the goal.

For the guy who was born and raised in St. Louis, this goal had a much bigger meaning than for someone else. His childhood dream, playing for the Blues, became a reality during the last summer when he signed a deal with the franchise as an unrestricted free agent, and finally got back home after wandering through the league for seven long years.

“It hasn’t really hit me yet,” Maroon said during the post-game interview. “You’ve just got to continue to keep going. It’s an honor to play for my hometown team.”

Dallas tried to level the score once more, and they even pulled out Bishop from the goal, trying to exploit the powerplay situation they had in those moments. With 44 seconds to go, Parayko was penalized because he delayed the game, and Stars had a nice opportunity for a score.

St. Louis players somehow managed to resist that pressure, and get away with a huge win.

“The guys that are going out there, they have a lot of pressure on them,” Blues defenseman Vince Dunn said. “But I think they really handled themselves really well.”

A victory from last night only indicates that this series is going to be more interesting. The home crowd isn’t bringing any kind of a special edge when these two sides meet. During the regular part of the season, Stars and Blues met four times, and on three occasions, the guests went home with a triumph. That trend continued in the playoff series: three games and two wins of the visitors.

Still, Dallas has lesser room for mistakes, and they need to pull themselves together and tie the series. Game 4 is set for this Wednesday, and after that, the matchup is moving back to Missouri.