The St. Louis Blues won their final game of 2017, but the lead up to that game was about as gloomy as you could get. Thankfully, 2018 started off a little bit brighter.
When the St. Louis Blues ended 2017, there was a lot of doom and gloom. Fans began questioning Mike Yeo and the goaltending issue reared its ugly head again.
St. Louis won their final game of the year, but it was correct note in an otherwise out of tune song. The entire month of December was mostly one to forget other than the second week.
The Blues looked listless and tired. They did have to play 16 games in the month, but there just didn’t seem to be enough fire in plenty of their games.
Even the game against Carolina, they seemed to win in spite of themselves. It was a good turnaround contest, but only compared to how they had been playing.
In the grand scheme o fthings, they still had plenty of issues. The team finally just scored enough goals to overcome those issues.
The start of 2018 was a little different. The offense seemed to regain its jump and drive.
It was the defense that ended up a little shaky. While they played a good overall game, it required a Herculean effort by their goaltender to win the day. Nevertheless, given how things ended in 2017, we will take the positive start.
Pros:
Vladimir Tarasenko seems to be heating up.
Tarasenko was a big part of the problem toward the end of the calendar year. He seemed to be gripping the stick too tightly, as the saying goes.
He was going out there and putting in good effort, but trying to make his passes and shots too perfect, which always has the opposite effect. He went five games in a row with only one assist to show for his efforts.
Things have turned around lately. With his goal against the Devils, he has two goals in three games and three points in three games.
Despite his skill, he has always been a streaky player. This game might help him springboard to a great month.
It was not a pretty goal, but it was a fantastic second effort for Tarasenko.
If he’s heating up, January might be a big month. It would not shock me at all to see him score 8-10 goals even if the team only has 11 games.
Cons:
The Blues failed to hold a lead again.
If you view the goals within a vacuum, there was not too much to be done about the shots that scored. However, the Blues failed to hold a lead (twice in this game) for the second game in a row.
For a team that prided itself on good defending at the start of the year, the back pairs have fallen into some bad habits. The defensive corps didn’t have a bad game, per say, but their mistakes were easily capitalized on.
On the first goal, Jay Bouwmeester was a step too slow on the puck carrier and Scottie Upshall got picked behind the net. On the second, it was more of a scramble.
The Blues lost the faceoff after taking a silly penalty and Paul Stastny fell down. The entire penalty kill never seemed to recover as the puck kept bouncing around.
It has to be said that it took an unbelievable deflection and a bunch of lucky bounces to score those goals. Still, when a team is on top of its game, they find ways to hold leads instead of constantly needing to regain them.
Pros:
Tage Thompson is raising expectations.
As if the hopes for this kid were not high already, Thompson is getting people excited. He still has plenty to improve on away from the puck, but he’s got some serious skill with it.
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He stick handles like someone half his size, but is already strong on the puck. He’s just barely 20 and going to get bigger and stronger.
Right from the first shift for his line, he came to play in this one. Like his entire run after returning from the minors, he always seems to have several plays that make an impact and he as only narrowly missed having several more goals.
We thought he did have another goal, which would have been his third of the season. Instead, he got his first assist as it deflected off a teammate in front.
Goal or not, he’s got that youthful exuberance that the team is really benefiting from right now.
He does need to work on his defensive play and getting into certain spots away from the puck. Overall, he’s doing a good job of securing a roster spot if/when the team gets healthy.
Cons:
The Blues were pretty bad in the overtime period.
If not for their goaltender, this one could have ended several times over. Whether New Jersey just had more energy or the Blues got flat-footed, things did not go the Note’s way at all in the extra period.
They had a couple trips down the ice, but the majority of the five minutes seemed like it was spent in the neutral zone or the Blues’ defensive zone.
Even the announcers commented about St. Louis being back on their heels. With so much space available via the 3v3 format, you have to be on your toes the entire time.
For whatever reason, just getting possession of the puck was hard.
Pros:
The power play.
Most people might have just choked on their coffee, but you have to give these units some credit. Normally if you go 0-4, we’d be screaming.
Instead, they often looked like an actual NHL power play unit instead of a bunch of kids going against pros. St. Louis had plenty of sustained pressure, made decent decisions and crisp passes.
On their first advantage alone, they had four shots. Some nights they’re lucky to get four shots total on all their power plays.
It has to be said toward the end of the game, the power play got back into their bad habits. However, some of that had to do with tweaking the lines.
Yeo went with an all forward unit and despite the team’s insistence on keeping him there, Tarasenko just isn’t suited for the point.
Overall, it was an improvement though. Goals will come if they can keep up that style of play from early in this one.
Pros:
Anyone who watched this game knew this one was coming. Hutton played out of his mind for long stretches.
If you want to be a complete nit-picker, you could question his positioning on the second goal. However, once the puck starts bouncing off the post, you don’t know which way to react and it was a fortunate shot that went off his body and in.
Other than that, he played lights out. I don’t want to hear this nonsense about him becoming the team’s starter, but he is certainly deserving of a few more games given the way he’s played of late.
The save he made in overtime was one for the ages. He might have gotten beat on the initial shot, but he made up for it.
Hutton also bailed out the team in the shootout too. His save to end the game was quite fitting of how he’d played the entire contest.
Overall Thoughts:
Still room to improve, but a good start to 2018.
The Blues need to find a way to score on the power play. New Jersey gave them several chances to take control of the game via a power play. They failed to convert, even if they did look better in the process.
That said, the team came out of the gate ready to play. That’s been an issue of late, but they had plenty of jump right from the word go.
The Blues did what they needed to do. They scored by driving to the net. They also made the other goaltender earn his saves.
Keith Kinkaid didn’t have to make highlight reel stops, but the Blues put solid pressure on and got second chance opportunities. They were determined to make Kinkaid win this game and for a bit it looked like he might. St. Louis kept plugging away though.
Next: Biggest Hits And Misses Of 2017 For The Blues
That’s the mark of a good team. Get a break and make the adjustments.
You’re not going to win every game, but losing so many in big bunches was worrying. They have not completely righted the ship, but this game was another step in the right direction.