NHL : Brown Lifts Blues Over Maple Leafs

The goaltending of Curtis Joseph and Jeff Brown’s goal at 3:03 of the second overtime enabled the St. Louis Blues to escape the sweat-soaked Maple Leaf Gardens with a 2-1 victory over Toronto on Wednesday night.

Joseph’s sensational performance allowed the Blues to tie the best-of-seven Norris Division final, 1-1. The series continues with Games 3 and 4 in St. Louis on Friday and Sunday.

Joseph made 57 saves. He had stopped 61 shots in Toronto’s 2-1 double-overtime victory in Game 1 Monday night.

Just when it seemed the game would never end, Brown lifted a rebound of a Craig Janney shot over the left shoulder of Maple Leaf goaltender Felix Potvin.

Toronto had the best chances to produce a winning goal in the first overtime. Joseph did the splits to catch a Peter Zezel slap shot four minutes into overtime. In the sixth minute of sudden death, Nikolai Borschevsky had the puck on his stick with Joseph lying on the ice, but Borschevsky shot wide of the open top part of the net. Joseph later went to his knees to rob Bill Berg.

Potvin was no slouch, either. With 48 seconds to play in the first overtime, Brett Hull blasted a shot toward a corner of the net, but Potvin somehow caught it.

Toronto outshot St. Louis, 58-40.

The victory was the first for the Blues in 11 games against Toronto this season.

The teams skated out for overtime in the humid Gardens tied, 1-1, on first-period goals by Hull and Gilmour.

Toronto outshot St. Louis, 48-26, in regulation time, including 15-4 in the third period.

In the third, Joseph robbed Mark Osborne with 7:30 left and Dave Andreychuk came up against a similar stop with 3:30 remaining.