Brent Burns celebrates with Joe Thornton after scoring a second-period goal against the St. Louis Blues.Dilip Vishwanat/Getty Images
Brent Burns scored San Jose's first two power-play goals of the Western Conference finals and Martin Jones stopped 26 shots for his second shutout of the post-season as the Sharks beat the St. Louis Blues 4-0 Tuesday night to even the series at a game apiece.
Tommy Wingels and Dainius Zubrus also scored and Logan Couture had two assists to help the Sharks bounce back from a tight loss in the opener.
Game 3 is Thursday night in San Jose.
Brian Elliott made 20 saves for St. Louis, which is 4-5 at home and 5-2 on the road in the post-season. Elliott wasn't as sharp as he's been throughout the Blues' run to their first conference final since 2001.
Burns' fifth and sixth goals of the post-season both came on one-timers with Troy Brouwer in the penalty box, and were his only shots of the game. The 6-foot-5, 230-pound defenceman made it 2-0 in the second off a nice setup from Joe Pavelski just 16 seconds after Brouwer went off for slashing, and made it a three-goal gap about 12 minutes into the third off a feed from Patrick Marleau 24 seconds after Brouwer was whistled for high sticking.
Jones also blanked Nashville in San Jose's second-round victory.
Zubrus assisted on Wingels' goal early in the first and added an empty-netter in the final minute.
Vladimir Tarasenko led the Blues with six shots at the end of a long day — his wife, Yana, gave birth to a son earlier Tuesday. The Blues' star was looking at the video board when the team announced the arrival to a standing room crowd of 19,586.
The Sharks entered the series clicking at 31 per cent on the power play, best in the post-season. They were 0 for 3 in the opener and coach Peter DeBoer complained about the lack of calls during the day between games.
San Jose also killed off a four-minute high-sticking call against Marleau early in the third period without too much trouble.
Wingels scored his second goal 2:07 in, seconds after Jones thwarted Tarasenko on the other end. Tarasenko had pickpocketed Paul Martin in the San Jose slot.
Burns is the lone Sharks player with a hat trick against the Blues, doing it on Nov. 13, 2013, in San Jose.