from Iain MacIntyre of Sportsnet,
The most important coaching Craig Berube did this series wasn’t even during a game.
It wasn’t finding a way to wring more from Vladimir Tarasenko or changing the St. Louis Blues’ power play or tweaking the defence pairings. It was walking into the dressing room late Wednesday to tell his players, emotional and vibrating with anger about a non-call that decided a playoff game against them, that everything was going to be alright.
“He comes in and says: ‘Forget about it, move on,’” St. Louis centre Ryan O’Reilly explained Friday. “He said: ‘We’re going to be alright, we’ll respond the right way.’ And we did.”
“We went home with the right mentality,” winger David Perron said. “I really believe it made a difference.”
O’Reilly said Berube believed in his players, and on Friday they earned more trust by dominating the San Jose Sharks at the start of Game 4 and hanging on to win 2-1 to even the Western Conference Final at two games apiece.
Watch the game highlights below.
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