St. Louis Blues Morning Links: Deja Vu All Over Again With Coyotes

Good morning Blues fans! Last night had a pretty familiar feel to it as the Blues took on the Arizona Coyotes. They got the result, but were not always thrilling in doing so.

A famous St. Louis born sports icon once said it was deja vu all over again. While Yogi Berra knew only baseball as a player, he might as well have been talking about the St. Louis Blues last night.

The Blues took on the Arizona Coyotes for the second time in ten days. The only real difference ended up being where the game was played.

The first time, it was in the desert. This time around, the Blues got the win on their home ice. Outside of that, it was pretty much the same thing. Oh, Arizona managed to get a goal this time.

The Blues played well enough to win, but they allowed Arizona to have too much influence on the game. While hockey is not like football or basketball in that the bottom teams truly are awful, Arizona is still not that good of a team yet.

The Coyotes may have a bright future. That future will likely feature another St. Louis born guy in Clatyon Keller, who saw his first NHL game come in his home town.

For the present, the Coyotes are not on the Blues level. Keller is not yet an NHL prodigy, featuring for 14 minutes but not even registering a shot on goal.

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Still, the Blues just could not put their stamp on the game. In honesty, there is only so much you can complain about in a 4-1 win, but it just wasn’t the full 60 that the Blues need.

St. Louis came out of the gates a little slowly and the powerplay was horrible. The Blues continue to either look like they can score at will on the man-advantage or they look like a junior team going against NHL players.

The game calmed down after a flurry of early penalties, but St. Louis just never even looked like they had chance. The entire point of having a powerplay is to penalize the opponent for going in the box. The Blues could not even work the Coyotes into a sweat.

Once the team got going in the second 20, the game turned around. The Blues got two goals, one from previously snake-bitten Jaden Schwartz and another from Alex Pietrangelo.

Those goals were big beyond just giving the team a turnaround in the game. Schwartz now has four goals in his last four games (scoring twice last night) and Pietrangelo has three in his last five.

Vladimir Tarasenko got his 35th of the season as well. The puts him as only the fourth Blues player to score 35 or more goals in three straight seasons.

Clearly there were positives. Perhaps the team did not play as good as they can as a whole, but their best players were their best players. That is exactly what you need going into the playoffs.

Jake Allen came up huge as well. The Snake just looks so calm in the pipes right now and you expect him to stop everything just as you worried he would not earlier in the season.

Beyond just the good play, we can finally see a different mask. Allen debuted a mask honoring the Blue Angels and playing so well in it might finally get rid of that underwhelming silverish one.

The Blues won’t have to go too deep into the video vaults to scout their next opponent. These two teams play each other again on Wednesday night, returning to the desert again.

Perhaps the Blues can make it three for three.

Here are your St. Louis Blues Morning Links to get your day started off right.

The Blues continued their everlasting habit of knowing exactly what they did wrong in the postgame interviews. However, when you get a win and the final score was not even close, it is fine when your big guns step up to the plate. (Blues)

Clayton Keller might not have done anything special in his NHL debut, but it was a special night. With his family in attendance, it will still be a night they are unlikely to forget anytime soon. (Belleville News-Democrat)

The Blues chief rival, the Chicago Blackhawks aren’t likely to finish out of first place as they continue to pick up points. However, they have a bad habit of giving up leads as they saw the Tampa Bay Lightning flash by them to win in overtime last night. (NHL)

The NHL is a game of big hits, but usually they don’t involve the goaltenders. Last night was an exception to that as a scary moment came in the game with Carolina vs. Detroit. (NHL)

Have a great day Blues fans!