Brian Elliott came on in relief of a dinged up Jaroslav Halak and the two combined for a shutout as the Blues evened up the Sharks at a game apiece.

By Brian Stubits

Apr 14, 2012 at 10:40 pm ET • 1 min read

Western Conference Quarterfinal Game 2

Blues 3, Sharks 0 (Box score, Recap)

MVP

Brian Elliott: I'm going to give him the nod here tonight because he was thrown into the fire ice cold after Jaroslav Halak had to leave the game due to injury. Elliott picked up right where Halak left off and kept the clean sheet. For a guy who was questionable to play in Game 1, he didn't look any worse for the wear. That's good too, especially after the collision that took Halak out of the game. Right now the Blues are saying it's not serious, but we'll know more. In the meantime, it was very comforting to see Elliott was as good in this game as he was during the season.

Turning Point

The initial reaction is to go to the game-winning goal, which was Marc-Edouard Vlasic's own goal in the opening minutes but I'm going to say elsewhere. Instead it came in the moments leading up to the second goal of the night, a David Backes score that was set up beautifully by T.J. Oshie. It was the culmination of a drawn out and heavy push by the Blues. When they finally scored it was a pretty crushing blow for the Sharks.

It was ...

Nasty. I think B.J. Crombeen above says it all (courtesy of SB Nation). Fights in playoff games aren't very common, but on this night they were. We had the flyweights going at it with Joe Pavelski and Kris Russell. Alex Steen and Dan Boyle went at it in the final minute. Then the game ended with an all-out brawl where Domonic begged for and received mercy from Vladimir Sobotka while Justin Braun took a pounding from Roman Polak (video below has all of the postgame madness). Not even counting the fights there were 15 penalties put into the books. Futher still, Brent Burns threw an elbow at Scott Nichol's head and T.J. Galiardi cracked Andy McDonald's helmet on a charge. Yea, Game 3 should be pretty good back in San Jose, especially with the series all even again at 1-1.