The St. Louis Blues forward looks at everything the team has been through this season, from a bad regular-season start to a coaching change to how much ground they had to make up to get into the Stanley Cup Playoffs. Facing elimination is just one more challenge.
"It's a great opportunity for us, a little adversity that we've kind of had to fight through the whole year," Bozak said. "I mean, it shouldn't be too hard to regroup and refocus."
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Certainly not, since the Blues must try to avoid elimination when they play the Dallas Stars in Game 6 of the Western Conference Second Round at American Airlines Center in Dallas on Sunday (3 p.m. ET; NBC, TVAS, SN). The Stars lead the best-of-7 series 3-2 after their 2-1 win against the Blues at Enterprise Center on Friday.
The Blues were 7-9-3 when coach Mike Yeo was fired and replaced by assistant Craig Berube on Nov. 19. It took time to adjust -- St. Louis was last in the NHL on Jan. 2 -- but the Blues did it, going 23-6-4 following the 2019 Honda NHL All-Star Weekend.
"You can take some of the experiences and be excited," forward David Perron said. "There's a lot of pressure, but it's also a lot of fun. It's what we play for. In December and November, we felt like we were losing that opportunity. Now we've found it again and we've got to give it our best game."
The Blues can be smarter with handling the puck and more productive on the power play, which is 2-for-16 in five games against the Stars. But it's about individual performances too.
Forward Vladimir Tarasenko has five points, all goals, in the playoffs, including three against the Stars. Forward Brayden Schenn, who had 54 points (17 goals, 37 assists) in the regular season, has four points (one goal, three assists) in 11 playoff games and no points in his past four games.
