ST. LOUIS — History was made here Tuesday night. Some of it had to do with the noise that escapes through the tangled poison ivy beard that surrounds Brent Burns’ mouth. The noise happens whenever he wants to shoot the puck.

Which is, as Burns admits, pretty much every waking minute of the day.

“I always call for the puck, even when I’m not open,” the Sharks’ defenseman said.

This time, though, Burns truly was open.

“He did give a little call,” acknowledged teammate Joe Pavelski, explaining how he came to slide a perfect setup to Burns, who then blasted the first of his two mammoth power play goals against the St. Louis Blues in an impressive and much-needed 4-0 victory.

And what does that “call” from Burns sound like, exactly?

“I don’t know, good question,” Pavelski said.

“I’m sure you can hear it up there (in the press box),” Burns said.

Actually, no. But the Blues totally heard it. The Call Of The Wild Burnzie is something that St. Louis’ hockey team had hoped to avoid — or at least minimize — during this Western Conference Championship Series. Instead, the noise might have lingered in the Blues’ ears as they left the ice at Scottrade Center.

The Sharks, by contrast, rang their history bell in the most beneficial way. They accomplished what they needed to accomplish here by splitting the first two games of the series.

That’s unprecedented in the 25-year annals of our beloved Los Tiburones. In their three previous trips to the conference championship round, the Sharks had always gone 0-2 — and then proceeded to lose those series.

Not this time. Oh, the series is still up in the air. At this point, it’s a best-of-five. But now the Sharks go home for Thursday’s Game 3 in position to make more history by taking a 2-1 lead in this third round of the Stanley Cup tournament, something else they’ve never done.

One reason it didn’t happen the other three times? The Sharks didn’t possess a weapon such as Burns.

Just to be clear, one man never wins a hockey game. The sport has too many moving parts and chaos moving at a million miles an hour. The Sharks were better in Tuesday’s game because they played their system well, controlled the puck, won the battles along the boards and used 12 or 13 players in quick shifts to kill off one tense four-minute penalty.

But with all that good stuff, the darts and daggers came from Burns, the blows that finished off the Blues. Tommy Wingels’ goal opened the Sharks’ scoring barely two minutes into the game. That helped greatly. But you usually can’t beat the Blues with one goal. And the Sharks’ usually potent power play had been held scoreless through Game 1 and the first period of Game 2.

The Blues had stymied the San Jose power play, in part, by good coverage that smothered any potential attempts by Burns to launch his lethal shot. But on this power play, Burns saw no one in front of him as Sharks forward Logan Couture won a fight for the puck along the boards and sent the puck to Pavelski between the faceoff circles. Burns charged toward that open space. He called. Pavelski answered. Burns unloaded.

Blues goalie Brian Elliott had no prayer. Burns can send pucks to the net at more than 90 miles an hour. When accurate, his shot is nearly unstoppable.

“Best I’ve ever seen,” said Shark coach Pete DeBoer when asked to describe it. “I think just how he can get it off from every angle, how he can get it to the net off balance, in bad spots . . . He finds a way to get it there. If it’s in the right spot, it’s going in.”

In the third period, Burns unleashed his missile again on another power play, this time on a feed from Patrick Marleau. That made the score 3-0 and effectively wrapped up the victory.

Burns said that the Sharks’ power play success was helped by some off-day stratagems on Monday.

“We talked about little things that they do and what we want to do,” Burns said. “I don’t think we really changed much. We wanted to make a difference in this game. All year we’ve been good. If we don’t make a difference positively the game before, we can change it the next game and be able to capitalize.”

Meanwhile, the Blues were strangely ineffective throughout the night at getting quality shots, but give some credit to the Sharks for that.

“They’ve got their A-game going right now,” said St. Louis coach Ken Hitchcock. “And it’s our job to catch up. We have played two B-Games. At times, quite frankly, we’re fortunate that it’s 1-1. We’ll take 1-1 right now with the way that we’ve played.”

St. Louis defenseman Kevin Shattenkirk also conceded the Sharks’ degree of opponent difficulty.

“They’re a frustrating team to play against,” Shattenkirk said. “They check you hard, they’re very disciplined, their structure can frustrate you. And that’s what we do well too. We have to make sure we’re on the other side of that.”

Burns expects the Blues to bite back.

“They’re a great team,” he said. “They play hard. It’s the playoffs. You’re going to play good teams. You’re going to have battles back and forth. This series is no different.”

Tuesday was important, though. It gave the Sharks more air to breathe. And after losing all three road games in the Nashville series, the Sharks established that they can win a road game against the Blues. That’s key, because the Sharks might need to win another game here to take the series.

Although not necessarily. Three of the remaining five possible games in the series will be played at SAP Center. So far in the postseason, the Sharks are 5-1 inside their Tank. If the Sharks win three more games there over the next eight days, they’ll be guaranteed a spot in the Stanley Cup finals for the first time ever. Should that occur, the Call Of The Wild Burnzie might be heard all the way to Reno.

Read Mark Purdy’s blog at blogs.mercurynews.com/purdy. Contact him at mpurdy@bayareanewsgroup.com. Follow him on Twitter at twitter.com/MercPurdy.