St. Louis Blues Phone It In, Lose Game One To Wild 4-2

The St. Louis Blues—except Jake Allen—attended but barely competed in all but the last twelve minutes of Game One of their 2014-15 Stanley Cup quarterfinal series in front of a sellout crowd at Scottrade Center with a deflating 4-2 loss to the Minnesota Wild, the same team they beat in the regular season’s final game 4-2. Their fans, who were sky-high at game time and gave their team a rousing welcome, deserved far better.

On the positive side, the Blues now know they will not repeat the disastrous first-round exits of the last two years by winning the first two games only to drop the next four in a row.

Too many penalties and listless, uninspired play doomed the Blues, who gave up home ice, a powerplay goal, two empty netters, scored a shorthanded goal, and went 0-for-2 on their own man-advantages.

Blues Coach Ken Hitchcock’s decision to go with hot hand Jake Allen in goal against the Wild was the right call, despite the outcome, and Allen played the full 60 minutes, which cannot be said for any other St. Louis player on the ice tonight. He had no chance on either goal scored when he was in net. Allen finished 24-of-26 with a .926 save percentage while the Wild’s Devan Dubnyk only had to turn in a ho-hum 19-of-21 for a .905 save percentage for the win. Allen has earned the start for Game Two. Hopefully everyone else will come along this time.

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The Blues (51-24-7, 109 points) are the second seed in the Western Conference, and earned home ice against the Wild (46-28-8, 100 points), who are seeded as the first wild card. While the Blues have the better record, the Wild have had one of the top records in the NHL the second half of the season.

While the Wild were ranked number one in the NHL on the penalty kill (86.3%), the Blues finished 3-for-6 on the powerplay against them in their last two outings. That success did not translate to results tonight.

The game began with the Blues line of Jaden Schwartz-Paul Stastny-T.J. Oshie out on the ice against the Wild’s first line of Jason Zucker-Mikko Koivu-Chris Stewart. As a consequence of late-season injuries to Blues wingers Alexander Steen and Vladimir Tarasenko, Hitch had been forced to reshuffle his lines. When those players returned, he decided to stick with the strong results those lines had shown over the last few games of the season, including two goals by the modified STL line with Steen in place of Schwartz in the finale.

The four modified starting lines for tonight’s game were: Jaden Schwartz-Paul Stastny-T.J. Oshie, Alexander Steen-Jori Lehtera-Vladimir Tarasenko, Dmitrij Jaskin-David Backes-Patrik Berglund, and Steve Ott-Marcel Goc-Ryan Reaves.

Hitchcock also tweaked the defensive pairings, which opened with Carl Gunnarsson-Alex Pietrangelo, Jay Bouwmeester-Zbynek Michalek, and Barret Jackman-Kevin Shattenkirk. Gunnarsson may have been inserted in place of healthy scratch Robert Bortuzzo to match up better against the Wild’s speed, who, like the Dallas Stars, are fast off the rush.

After a tentative start, the pace of the play picked up, and at 2:47 of the first period, left winger Jason Zucker raced in and put a puck on net that bounced off Allen like it was on a string right back onto Zucker’s stick behind the net, which he then put in to a wide open net on a wrap-around. Allen, still on his right side, had no chance on the wrap-around on account of being human. Justin Fontaine had the lone assist.

Next: Goaltending Controversy: Jake Allen Starting Goalie Against Minnesota

Allen recovered well despite the early goal with a couple strong saves on Zucker and Nino Niederreiter at the 8:10 mark. The Blues had given up a couple odd-man breaks since the goal which the Wild failed to capitalize on. At the midpoint of the first period the Wild had outshot the Blues 6-3.

On one of the night’s best chances, Tarasenko had a 2-on-1 break with Alexander Steen but Steen was in too tight to the goal to convert a little past the 12-minute mark.

The Blues had a good shift in the Wild zone with the Jaskin-Backes-Berglund line around the 15:20 mark and then with the Steen-Tarasenko-Lehtera line and Pietrangelo in on the play. At times the Blues appeared to finesse in the period when they would have been better off to put the puck toward the net.

The level of apathy evident on the ice tonight for almost the entire game—or for even one period—will not get it done against the Wild.

With 3:48 left in the first period, the Blues and Wild both had seven shots on goal. Jaskin had a shot on goal with 5.5 seconds left in the period, which ended with a faceoff win by Oshie and a shot that hit the side of the net. The shots at the end of the period were 7-7 and there were no penalties. The Wild won 9 of the 16 faceoffs. The Blues appeared to hold the advantage in terms of puck possession, but were not able to get much directed at the net.

At 1:41 of the second period, with the Blues in the Wild’s zone, Dubnyk’s stick flew all the way to the boards, but the Wild were able to ice the puck. At 2:20, with the Wild pressing on the net, Blues forward Paul Stastny got a hooking call for the series’ first penalty, and at 4:10, after the Blues failed to clear the zone, rookie Matt Dumba sent a laser one-timer behind Allen, screened by two Wild players and his own defenseman, assisted by Jared Spurgeon and Niederreider.

The Wild’s Kyle Brodziak was called for slashing on Steen at 4:34, giving the Blues their first powerplay opportunity, but the Blues failed to generate anything. On a 3-on-2 break Oshie got a great pass to Schwartz but he was unable to put it on net. Around the 8:40 mark, Jay Bouwmeester with a golden opportunity hit the crossbar.

Apr 16, 2015; St. Louis, MO, USA; Minnesota Wild defenseman Marco Scandella (6) attempts to clear the puck away from St. Louis Blues center Paul Stastny (26) in the third period in game one of the first round of the the 2015 Stanley Cup Playoffs at Scottrade Center. The Minnesota Wild defeat the St. Louis Blues 4-2. Mandatory Credit: Jasen Vinlove-USA TODAY Sports

At the game’s midpoint the Wild held a 12-10 advantage in shots and faceoff wins were 15 apiece. Minnesota had 15 blocked shots to the Blues’ 7 and the Blues had 5 giveaways to the Wild’s 2. Despite being down 2-0 the Blues were not bringing any animosity or mustard to their checking, and seemed to be phoning it in.

At the 12:08 mark, a Bouwmeester hook onto Zach Parise’s hands somehow brought the Wild forward’s entire body down to the ice, and a hooking penalty was called, which the Blues killed off.

Around the 15:40 mark Allen made a huge save on the Wild’s Jared Spurgeon that essentially kept the Blues in the game; shortly before that the Blues had given up yet another 3-on-2 break which the Wild failed to capitalize on.

At 17:09, Jason Zucker followed Parise’s act with a dive that drew an interference call against St. Louis blueliner Zbynek Michalek, and Allen made a good early save and another save on ex-Blue Chris Stewart so that the penalty was killed. Vanek came up ice with a pass to winger Jason Pominville and Allen came up with another strong save.

“[Allen] made all the saves he should’ve and some he shouldn’t.”

At the very end of the period Hitchcock began trying to juggle the lines, putting in the original STL line of Schwartz-Tarasenko-Lehtera, and Shattenkirk and Niederreider had some pushing and shoving at the buzzer.

The Blues were outshot in the period 14-4, gave up a powerplay goal, and played mechanistically, as if they were content with what was happening on the ice. Jake Allen, then 19-for-21 with several saves at the end of the period to prevent the Wild from going up 3-0, was the only player checked in for the Blues on the ice. At the very least the Blues could have tried their opponent’s strategy of diving to get a call.

The third period began with more of the same, slowed play, more faceoffs, taking the crowd out of the game. Allen made another strong early save on Vanek, who wired the shot in on net. Bouwmeester played a listless shift both behind his net trying to get the Blues out of the zone and against a Wild forward coming into the zone.

The Schwartz-Stastny-Oshie line had a strong shift and after Pietrangelo did the work to dig the puck out of the zone, Schwartz wristed the Blues’ first goal past Dubnyk at the 7:12 mark, assisted by Shattenkirk and Berglund, a 5-on-5 goal. The crowd, which had begun to boo the Blues’ play, was back in the game and chanting for more.

At the 9:30 mark Niederreider was called for holding, and the Blues promptly got a major scoring chance with Backes in close that Dubnyk denied. The rest of the penalty was killed off without event. Allen came out and poked away a scoring chance for Parise with just over four minutes left. Allen stopped another shot by Fontaine, and in the worst blown chance of the night, Tarasenko got a great pass to Dmitri Jaskin who missed a wide-open net on the rush back.

Mikael Granlund scored an empty-netter at 18:47 to put the Wild up 3-1 and presumably salt away the victory. But then, after a Blues’ penalty, Tarasenko took a shot from center ice and Steen scored to close the gap to 3-2 with 58 seconds left on a Wild powerplay. The Blues pulled Allen to make it 5-on-5 and Pominville scored the Wild’s second empty-netter to ice the win 4-2.

Apr 16, 2015; St. Louis, MO, USA; St. Louis Blues left wing Alexander Steen (left) celebrates with Vladimir Tarasenko (center) and Kevin Shattenkirk (right) after scoring a gaol against the Minnesota Wild in the third period in game one of the first round of the the 2015 Stanley Cup Playoffs at Scottrade Center. The Minnesota Wild defeat the St. Louis Blues 4-2. Mandatory Credit: Jasen Vinlove-USA TODAY Sports

Ryan Reaves, Steve Ott, and David Backes should make sure the Wild players keep their trainers busy with lots of ice packs following Game Two, regardless of the outcome. If the Blues should somehow wind up 2 or 3 goals behind again, one of the players should order up the house special of Saucy Mitts while the game is still winable. The level of apathy evident on the ice tonight for almost the entire game—or for even one period—will not get it done against the Wild.

In a post-game interview, Captain David Backes admitted “[w]e didn’t bring our “A” game from the drop of the puck,” and that was certainly true for the Blues collectively and individually. Acknowledging that Allen kept them in the game, he said “[Allen] made all the saves he should’ve and some he shouldn’t.”

Minnesota leads the quarterfinal series 1-0. The series resumes with Game Two on Saturday, April 18 at 2:00 p.m. Central, also at Scottrade.

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