St. Louis Blues: NHL Central Weekly Review (1st Week of May/2nd Round Continues)

The St. Louis Blues and their fans were a tiny bit disappointed with their first week of the second round. They felt lucky to escape with a 1-1 series. While the style of play might have been frustrating, fans could not argue with the results for this past week.

The St. Louis Blues sandwiched this past week with a couple fantastic scorelines with a disappointing, salty meat in the middle of that savory bread.

The Blues got off to a fantastic start to the week on Tuesday with a 6-1 win in their first game at home in round two. The game itself got off to a poor start with the Stars scoring the first goal, but the Blues answered back quickly and emphatically.

The Blues unleashed an offense that many didn’t think they had or at the least didn’t think they had in the playoffs. Alexander Steen got two goals as well as David Backes and Vladimir Tarasenko got three points. A fantastic all around effort culminating in a big victory.

Things didn’t go nearly as well for Game 4. It went well in the first period. Tarasenko got things going with the first goal of the game, scoring on a breakaway despite Dallas having six players on the ice. The Stars scored the next two though before Paul Stastny tied it up. The Blues never could overcome their sloppy play though and the Stars got a goal in overtime to win 3-2.

Fans were a little bit worried that the Blues bad play had carried over to Game 5 in Dallas on Saturday. The team looked shaky and tentative despite scoring the opening goal of the game. It went into intermission tied 1-1 though.

The Blues rebounded with one of their best second periods of the series, if not the playoffs. Two great effort goals in the second period and a rare empty net goal in the third put the exclamation points onto the game and a 4-1 win.

With that win, the Blues pushed the Stars to the brink. The series is now 3-2 with a potential series clinching game in St. Louis on Monday night.

Blues’ Weekly Stats

David Backes – 2G 1A 3P
Dmitrij Jaskin – 1G 0A 1P
Patrik Berglund – 0G 1A 1P
Paul Stastny – 2G 2A 4P
Robby Fabbri – 1G 2A 3P
Alexander Steen – 2G 1A 3P
Troy Brouwer – 2G 1A 3P
Scottie Upshall – 0G 1A 1P
Jaden Schwartz – 0G 3A 3P
Vladimir Tarasenko – 2G 3A 5P
Kevin Shattenkirk – 0G 2A 2P
Alex Pietrangelo – 0G 1A 1P
Carl Gunnarsson – 0G 2A 2P
Jay Bouwmeester – 0G 2A 2P

View from the Midwest Weekly Division Recap

Looking Forward

The Blues can clinch the series on Monday night at 7 p.m. CST and really need to do so. The game is at home, will be in front of an almost exclusively Blues favoring crowd (unlike a few Chicago games) and will be an opportunity to prove they can end things without their own backs against the wall.

A potential Game 7 would be on Wednesday night at 7 p.m. CST.

The Blues, when at their best, have dominated play. Dallas is missing two key players in Tyler Seguin and Patrick Eaves but when the Blues have clicked, it seems unlikely those players would have made the difference.

The flip side of that coin is when the Blues have not played with all the checkmarks ticked off, then they have been very poor. Dallas has been steady throughout this series and taken full advantage of the Blues if they have not come out with their A-game.

That said, the Blues really need to end this in six. Regardless of playing well on the road, the result of Game 6 in Chicago shows you don’t want to absolutely have to win three games on the road in the playoffs.

Their opponent should they win would be either the San Jose Sharks or Nashville Predators, but they had better keep 100% focus on the Stars. It’s time for the Blues to step up and return to the Conference Finals for the first time in 15 years.