The St. Louis Blues kept up their pace of winning every other game. This time it was another rather impressive win over the Calgary Flames by a score of 3-1.
Ding dong, the streak is dead. Which old streak? The weekend streak. Ding dong, the weekend streak is dead. Hallelujah, the St. Louis Blues finally managed to win a game on the weekend.
That’s right, the improbable keeps happening in the 2018-19 season. The St. Louis Blues finally managed to win a weekend game by beating Calgary by a final of 3-1.
St. Louis had not won a game on Saturday since October 27, nearly two months ago. They have yet to win a Sunday game, giving them a record of 3-10 on weekend games even with their pre-holiday win.
When you think about the number of Saturday games the Blues have had so far, they could easily be at .500 or better if they had won a few of those. Yet, as the entire season has been, this remains a mystery as to why they struggle.
But, for one afternoon, the Blues managed to not get in their own way. They started strong, similarly to how they did in Vancouver, by scoring two first period goals. Then, they held on for the rest of the game after taking a silly penalty and allowing a power play goal against.
The Blues were pretty fortunate on their first goal. Everyone lost sight of the puck as it went in the air and then David Perron banked it in from a bad angle once he spotted it.
From there, it was all about Jake Allen and the island of misfit players. Allen kept the Flames at bay and Tyler Bozak and Oskar Sundqvist managed to add an insurance goal later in the third period.
It is definitely how you draw things up, but beggars cannot be choosers.
Pros: Jake Allen
There are plenty of fans out there that simply do not like the Snake. It does not matter what he does, short of finding a way to get this team a Stanley Cup, it’ll never be good enough. The sad thing is the national media are lazy and latch onto these stories.
The truth is the Blues are winning games due to Allen and he’s keeping them in more than they deserve too. Allen has a .910 save percentage since November 10. Really, the only reason his numbers are not even better is because Allen has started nine straight games since the team waived Chad Johnson.
There have been plenty of goals scored against, but Allen has only been even partially to blame for one or two at most. In this game, there was nothing he could do about the goal scored against him. The Blues found a way to let one of the Flames’ best scorers alone in the crease on a power play.
The stats were not in favor of the Snake at the time as Calgary got one goal on six shots. From there on, Allen turned away 23 straight shots and stopped 28 overall.
Allen did not have to make the highlight reel save, but he was steady and confident. The Snake did come up big having to shut down Johnny Gaudreau on the breakaway. He managed to stop all of Calgary’s power plays other than that one goal where the defense was nonexistent.
If this was the Allen the Blues got every game the rest of the season, they will have every chance to rebound from their awful start. It’s up to the rest of the team to perform up to the same level.
Cons: More Bad Penalties And Poor Defending
The Blues penalty killing is still pretty good in the overall sense. The unit is a good three percentage points above the league average. However, being satisfied with being better than average might be part of this team’s problem.
The issues is not always the penalties taken, but why they are taken and when. Just going into the box is not always an issue, but going into the box shortly after scoring your second goal is a problem. It makes matters worse when it was an unnecessary penalty.
You can argue that Pat Maroon was shafted by the officials with a weak call, but the bottom line is he put his stick in a spot where the refs could make a call. After that, the spotty Blues defending returned.
If you go back and watch the play and each player, it becomes more difficult to say with certainty what should have happened. Some will be quick to blame Jay Bouwmeester since he was late to the party near the crease.
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However, a closer look reveals that he was attempting to get in front of a possible shot, so he did his job and was on his man. Joel Edmundson elected to follow the puck instead of Matthew Tkachuk, leaving this talented forward all alone in the crease. That is right – not in the slot or at the side, but literally in the crease.
All Calgary had to do was make a quick pass past Edmundson and Tkachuk had a tap in. Maybe Bouwmeester needs to rotate down, but I would rather see Edmundson stick with Tkachuk and let Allen face the shooter square up.
On top of that, mere minutes after the goal that made it 2-1, David Perron took another awful penalty. Again, it was slightly soft by the refs, but you just can’t take offensive zone or neutral zone penalties because you were out of position. Perron has to lead the team in that particular category.
Calgary only had two other power plays after that one was killed off and the team’s PK unit settled in and Allen stepped up. Still, you have to be more disciplined and smarter about what you’re doing.
Pros: Tyler Bozak
This one is a culmination of a couple games. Tyler Bozak had plenty of chances and was doing a fantastic job during the game in Vancouver, at least at the start of the game. He was simply not rewarded.
Bozak got his reward in this game. He managed to score on the back door by jabbing in a rebound from Maroon to net his fifth goal of the year.
Bozak was throwing his body around, credited with two hits in the game. He was a solid presence on the team’s second power play unit too. Really the only poor thing about his game was his faceoffs, at 22%, which is surprising since he is usually good in that area.
The steadiness of Bozak and his hard work has been an example to follow for his wingmates. You would like to see Robert Thomas on another line for pure talent reasons, but he has done a good job of learning from Bozak. Maroon also seems to be gaining confidence on this line as he has managed to settle into his game again too.
These are all small things, but you have to take those and use it as the foundation.
Cons: Officiating
The officials did not cost the Blues the game, but this continues to be an issue for the Blues and the league really.
As a referee in other sports, I know how hard it is and how much scrutiny even the smallest call or non-call can get. But, these are the guys at the top of their game and supposedly the best in North America. If that is true, we might be in trouble.
The problem is there are just so many ticky-tack calls going against the Blues while they get mauled. There was not as much physicality on the part of the Flames, but there were still calls to be made.
On the flip side, it seems like the arm goes up almost every opportunity against St. Louis. Maroon needs to be smarter with his stick, but that’s not holding. If anything, the Calgary player was holding his stick.
You could have easily not called Perron’s penalty too. It was not a terrible call, since there was a bit of a trip, but we have seen that same play called incidental contact by other officials.
The gripe is more that you have no clue what will be an infraction from game to game. If you knew something would be called all the time, you could get used to it. When that is not the case, we get the blood pumping over these small items.
Pros: Oskar Sundqvist
Either Oskar Sundqvist has been a very good boy and Santa came early, or he might have sold his soul. Either way, nobody saw his current form coming.
I will not lie – I would still rather certain other players get the nod over Sundqvist, but that is because their ceiling is higher. In terms of results, it is hard to argue against the big Swede.
Sundqvist’s goal gave him six on the year. Just to put that in perspective, he had two career goals coming into the 2018-19 season.
Sundqvist had a career total of nine points in 70 games prior to this season. Now, he has nine points in 26 games played in 2018-19 alone.
Nobody can really pinpoint why he’s had a turnaround. Maybe it is different linemates or maybe it is the confidence of knowing you won’t be sent to the minors after one or two games.
Whatever the reason, he has turned himself into a reliable player. If he could play against Calgary all season, it would be even better since two of his six goals have come against the Flames.
Overview
Let’s not try to extrapolate this result into any future performances. It simply does not fit this team.
The best we can do is hope the Blues go into the Christmas break with some joy in their hearts after a good win over one of the league’s better/hotter teams. Maybe they will come out of the holiday with some spirit and make some changes for the good like good, ol’ Scrooge.
But, until we see it, we have to assume they will lose their next game since they have split their last four games.
The positive is there are upward trends. Despite results, the Blues have come out strong in the first period in back-to-back games.
The offense has been there, in spurts granted, but it just needs to find a little more consistency. The defense has been solid until they start pressing.
They have gotten solid goaltending too, which when you put it all together should be a recipe for wins. But, you can’t bottle this Calgary result or else they would.
Still, just like it has to be for the players, it is good to go into the holidays not feeling like your team sucks balls (Schweddy Balls of course).
Hopefully Santa will bring us all a better second half of the season after this win.