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Detroit Drives St. Louis Blues Wild: Control Wanted

By Kate Cimini

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The St. Louis Blues started out their game well against the Detroit Red Wings on Sunday. They had good puck possession, were awake for the game like we hadn’t seen in a while, and were hungry for a win.

However, it was not meant to be.

They battled it out with Detroit through the first and second, going back and forth between both nets and competing for most shots on goal. It was tight, with St. Louis rocking the first half of the first period, giving over to Detroit, and then taking charge of most of the second.

The puck possession chart below from hockeystats.ca shows a pretty clear battle for dominance between the two teams.

Battle for puck possession between Blues and Red Wings, March 22nd.

And the Blues would have come away the victor if not for one thing: their self-control.

Wanted: Control

The Blues occasionally take bad penalties (coughBackescough) or get frustrated and take too many penalties. What they don’t often do is have an on-ice meltdown against a team they had the lead over. St. Louis was in a battle with Detroit right from the start of the game, which led to their mess of a third period being even more confusing.

Despite the first period being a mess of penalties — holding, high-sticking, tripping and slashing penalties were all assessed “right off the hop” as Darren Pang might say — the Blues held their own with good communication on defense and smart zone clears. They weren’t the strongest on offense, but they had a good sense of how to move the puck into the opponent’s zone, chipping it in and chasing it, but more often than not trying for a breakaway.

The second period continued with much of the same, with two power plays given to St. Louis with only minutes separating them. The Blues took full advantage, and Alexander Steen scored a fantastic shot on goal from the blue line off a Pietrangelo assist. This was by far the highlight of the game for Blues fans; the players took their time, assessed the situation and took advantage of Backes’ placement in front of Detroit goaltender Jimmy Howard.

The third period is where it all fell apart for the Blues.

They took penalty after penalty after penalty. Sure, you could argue (and some have) that the referees didn’t do their job, allowing an OT goal that should have been reviewed due to Abdelkader’s broken stick. We can dispute calls all day (or complain about non-calls).

Regardless, the game should never have gone to overtime in the first place.

The Blues took a bad penalty with a minute and a half to go in the third that gave Detroit a man advantage for the rest of the third and going into overtime when Patrik Berglund got a tripping call for taking down Detroit’s Nicklas Kronwall.

At this point, you had to know the Blues were just hoping they could hang on for five minutes to get to the shootout. And this? Is a point a game should never get to. The Blues simply lost their momentum somewhere in the third, and never got it back.

When a team is left playing defense and waiting for the clock to tick down we know they’ve already lost the game in their heads. And what make it even harder for fans is St. Louis’ performance early in the game, when they were strong on the puck, went hard at the boards and only occasionally suffered a defensive breakdown at the blue line.

Juvenile graphic made by Kate Cimini. Feel free to use and enjoy.

Now, if they could just get their sticks under control…

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