St. Louis Blues Pros And Cons From Games 53/54 Vs. Nashville

The St. Louis Blues had all the momentum in the world behind them facing their rivals the Nashville Predators. How much they left their two game split with was going to be a huge question.

Going into this weekend home-and-home with the Nashville Predators, most St. Louis Blues fans would have been happy with a split. The best would have hoped for three points out of four.

Instead, the Blues spoiled us all rotten by taking all four possible points. They might have let a stray point slip the way of the Preds, but at this point the Blues need to be more concerned with points gained for themselves. Nashville is far enough away, nobody need concern themselves with letting them have an overtime point.

The Blues played like the Blues of old instead of the ones we have seen this season and we were all glad to see it. It has been far too long since we have seen the team play a combination of being physical and skilled all in one.

If you want to focus on the negative, you surely can even though the Blues won. They continually let the Predators back into both of these games, surrendering a late goal in the first game and then allowing the Predators to tie it up twice in the second.

Despite this, we never saw that hangdog mentality from St. Louis. They kept plugging away, almost seeming to know they were going to find a way to win instead of how they knew they would lose earlier in the year.

You had contributions from up and down the lineup. Both goalies put their stamp on the games. Vladimir Tarasenko resumed his role as a star on a national stage. Role guys like Vince Dunn, Tyler Bozak and even Mackenzie MacEachern got involved in the scoring.

These were huge wins in the standings and for team morale. Rarely is anything in February that important, but these two wins were about as big as you can get at this stage of the season, particularly with everything that has gone wrong with this team.

Pros: Old School Physicality

If anyone ever wanted to know what hockey was like in the 80’s or 90’s, this was probably as close as you will ever get in today’s game. The Blues and Predators played an old-school type of game in these two contests that brought joy to the hearts of anyone older than their 20’s.

It all started with Pat Maroon‘s fight. The Big Rig might not have joined the fight purposefully, but he got his licks in and showed that he will not back down from anyone, nor be the one to give momentum to the opponent by backing down. Maroon is not a fighter, but he’s big enough to defend himself and dish out some punishment, which is exactly what we saw on Saturday. It was fitting that the Blues were wearing their throwback style jerseys for that encounter.

Beyond that, we saw a Blues style that reminded us of what Blues hockey always used to be. St. Louis has never had the fastest or even the biggest, but they’ve always had as much or more heart. They unleashed all of that in two swoops against the Predators.

There were scrums after every other whistle it seemed like. Players were jawing with one another, jabbing at the other and the hits were plentiful.

All-in-all there were 86 total hits in these two games. While the Blues were outhit in both games, it never really felt that way.

We have seen plenty of games where you could tell the Blues were outhit because they were outmatched. St. Louis never felt like the lesser of two teams in the toughness department.

The only thing you’d like to see more of is some grabbing and a facewash or two after getting too close to the crease. Even then, the Blues did a decent job sticking up for their netminders.

While old-school fans pine for this style of hockey, the ones with common sense know you can’t play this style for 82 games. It is simply too taxing. For a couple games in early February, it was uplifting to see the Blues actually hand it to the Predators and give them a taste of their own medicine.

Cons: Power Play

This has been a copy and paste topic throughout the season. Things go up and down for any team when it comes to special teams, but things just never seem to improve for long for the Blues.

The only thing more shocking than how bad they looked through this mini-series with Nashville was the fact that Nashville is actually worse. The Predators are in last place in the NHL in power play percentage.

That said, this is a focus on the Blues. Over these two games, the Blues went 1-7 with the man advantage.

We saw something similar the last time these teams met in the playoffs. It was the power play that failed to produce and ultimately cost the Blues a chance to win that series.

Fortunately, it did not cost them in these games. Even so, this just cannot be overlooked.

What makes matters worse is how ineffective they are. The team’s top power play unit, which has their most skilled players, looks like they have never played a game together.

They seem to never know where anyone will be enough to move around, which causes stagnation in flow. So, the passes are too slow and the shots never come.

Making matters worse, they often give up more shorthanded chances than they generate themselves.

Most games, you are not going to get away with having a percentage this low. It was only their penalty kill and the overall physical play that won the day in spite of wasting so many power plays.

Pros: Vladimir Tarasenko

Even the biggest Vladimir Tarasenko fan cannot deny that this season has not been his best. He is almost sure to miss the 40 goal mark again and might not even make it to his average of 34.

However, hopefully these two games make some realize how dumb the idea of trading him was. You do not trade away someone who consistently gives you the goal totals he does for the unknown of “potential”.

Tarasenko lit up the Predators in this game as though they were the Chicago Blackhawks, a team he has owned over the course of his career. He ended this two game split with a rather impressive four goals.

Just as impressive, perhaps more so, was the hat-trick. Tarasenko showed how good he can be again.

He scored with his classic wrist shot, which is one of the hardest and quickest in the league. He was going to the tough areas of the ice too.

Tarasenko did not score any dirty goals inside the crease as he had in previous games, but he was driving the net and getting to the slot too.

Just as important, he was unleashing his shot. Too often throughout this season, and his career really, Tarasenko has looked to pass too much for such an elite scorer.

He did not do that against Nashville and buried four goals in the back of the net. His second goal on Sunday might not have been the best, but that’s why you shoot it – sometimes you get the fortunate bounces.

Of course, you have the game winning goal where he bulldozed his way to the slot and buried the shot. Just as good was Tarasenko giving everything right back to P.K. Subban. For a quiet guy, he was not taking any crap at all from one of the biggest jaw jackers in the game.

Cons: Too Many Shots Against

I thought about labeling this one as poor defense, but that would not make sense. The defense, as a unit, was a big reason the Blues won these two games and in convincing fashion.

They were being physical, taking away the shooting lanes and helping out with blocks when they could. Overall, it was a solid performance by the blue line crew.

That said, they depended on their goaltenders a little too much. In the second game, you might chalk it up to fatigue from a back-to-back games. Even so, you cannot allow your goaltender to face 44 shots in that game.

In the game the night before, they allowed 31 shots against. That is not unheard of or completely unacceptable, but it is a little more than you would like in a defensive battle.

Of course, there will be plenty of those that feel the need to blame Jake Allen in the second game. I do not feel the need to engage them any longer as they are only looking to hate and have no sense of reality. Let us not forget that Jordan Binnington let up a softy that could have cost the Blues in their Saturday matchup.

All that aside, the goalies were put under a decent amount of pressure and some of it was undue. Of course there are the facts of the referees calling some dubious penalties, often being suckered in by the soccer antics of the Predators.

In the end, the Blues need to keep themselves out of the box in these situations. You put undue pressure on your goaltenders, even if you do a good job of clogging lanes. The sheer zone time can wear out the legs with all the back and forth.

Then, there is the issue of taking the foot off the gas. Nashville is a great team and they deserve credit for turning on the energy, but the Blues also let off a little and that is just enough against a good team.

Pros: Goaltenders

The flip side of the previous issue is the goaltenders were both a big reason the Blues took two wins. Say what you want if you’re a hater, but the Blues did not win in spite of anyone, they won because of both of them and the team needs that going forward.

Argue all you want about the quality of chances against in the first period of Sunday’s game, but Allen faced 44 shots and made 40 saves.

Allen stopped over 90% of the shots against him. He also turned away all eight shots from the Nashville power play. They might be the worst team in the league statistically, but they are still a troublesome team to keep off the board.

On the other side of the coin, Binnington did allow a power play goal against in his turn against Nashville, but was solid when called upon other than that. Aside from the aforementioned goal that he would like to have back, Binnington was his normal reliable self. The defense was a much larger role in the win in Binnington’s game, but he came up with the saves when needed.

Basically, when you strip away all the drama that fans put into this situation, the Blues got exactly what they needed from their goaltenders in both of these games. They made the saves they needed to make, overall, and got the wins.

We have fallen into this odd love/hate relationship with the goalie position and it takes too much focus away from the games itself. People apparently have no clue about needing rest, calling for a hot goaltender to play both games of a back to back when that just does not happen these days.

St. Louis needs both Binnington and Allen at the top of their games to make a charge through the end of the season. They were both very good through these games and were strong in their crease, which is necessary against a team like the Predators that constantly crashes the paint.

Overview

One of the things I considered adding as a con was the constant flopping of the Predators. I am a soccer fan and cannot stand when people disparage the sport. However, one of the things even I find distasteful about the game is the flopping and diving looking for fouls.

I think the Predators are hockey’s version of a European soccer team. They don’t flat-out dive (with a couple exceptions), but they go down much easier than they should to give the official a decision to make. I understand the advantage you attempt to gain, but it should not be acceptable in hockey. They are too talented for that.

Focusing more on the Blues, this was a gigantic couple games. Not only were they victorious, further pushing themselves into a playoff spot, but they beat one of the best teams in the conference and a likely playoff foe.

When you make it to the second season, these games don’t matter a bunch in terms of momentum. However, knowing you can overcome the adversities that are going to happen in the playoffs, such as giving up leads, is a gigantic confidence boost for those scenarios.

On top of everything, the Blues found a way to play playoff-style hockey. My biggest fear, even if this team made the postseason was they would get blown out since they have not proven the ability to play that kind of style.

We saw a much different Blues team in these two games. They were willing to mix it up with a team that is superior in playing that kind of style. They threw their body around both physically and defensively, to keep opponents and pucks at bay.

The Blues actually took good shots. Instead of settling for the perimeter shots and going back to defend, they drove into the hard areas of the ice and were rewarded time and time again for it.

I have avoided saying any of these wins during this recent turnaround are “cornerstone wins” but these two might be different. I was slow to give up on the team during their swoon and just as slow to think they could actually make the playoffs.

Now, these two wins give me hope this team could actually do something come the spring. Nobody is talking about a Cup run because that would just be foolish.

However, to think you could steal a round or maybe even two in the playoffs is just as much a reality as missing the playoffs was just a month ago. The team and the fans are back to having fun with the game and that is what has been so great about this recent run and this weekend sweep of Nashville in particular.