The St. Louis Blues took on the Dallas Stars for the second and final time in the 2019 preseason. It did not go quite as well as the first time around.
They say the second time is never quite as good as the first. That applies to the St. Louis Blues second time around with the Dallas Stars in the 2019 NHL preseason.
All in all, this was your typical preseason game. The Blues did not look that cohesive, especially in crunch time near the end of the game.
The disappointing thing about this contest was the lackluster special teams units on both sides for the Blues. We will get into specifics later on, but you have to hope this game was not a great indicator of how things are going to go in 2019-20 or the problem is with the players and not the coaching.
That said, the Blues just did not have enough on this night. They allowed the Stars to score two special teams goals and the Blues came up empty handed until the very end of the game.
The Stars scored the only goals of the first and second period. St. Louis would get the aforementioned late goal in the third period and there was a good press for the tying goal at the end. Nevertheless, it was too little, too late and the Blues fell by the score of 3-2, dropping their preseason record to 3-2.
Pros – Faceoffs
It might seem like a small, insignificant thing, but it was becoming a little worrisome that the Blues were not winning the faceoff battles in these early preseason games. There were a couple games they were getting beaten by large margins too.
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You can use the preseason excuse, such as this guy or that line not playing, if you want. The bottom line is the guys taking the draws were not doing good enough.
That was not this case on this night. In fact, the faceoff dot was one of the few areas the Blues actually dominated.
St. Louis won 61% of their faceoffs. Oddly enough, Ryan O’Reilly – one of the team’s best on faceoffs – was the worst statistically at 53%. Everyone else was 71% or higher.
That is something that needs to carry into the season. These guys were pretty much the centers the team will have to start the year, so getting them to win the puck and set up the offense or make for easier zone exits is critical. It just saves so much time in either instance.
Cons – Potential Injury
Ivan Barbashev was knocked out of the first period after a questionable hit from behind from former Blues defenseman Roman Polak. Barbashev would return for a shift or two in the second period, but not much.
In total, Barbashev only played 6:18 of the game. For context, the next lowest time on the ice was 11 minutes and change.
Hockey is hockey, but it does seem senseless to get as into it as the Stars were in this game. Both teams were only credited with 16 hits each, but Polak seemed to have a burr in his saddle so to speak.
Maybe it was just precautionary. It would just stink to lose Barbashev this early in the season, especially with the salary cap crunch the team is under.
Pros – Not Giving Up
While the bulk of the game could either get a thumbs up or down, depending on what you were looking for, the end of the game looked ok. The team was down, but they kept plugging away, which seems to becoming a hallmark of the Blues under Craig Berube.
One of the most encouraging things, sadly, was the Blues actually looking like a normal NHL team when they had their goaltender pulled. In the past, the Blues would get one shot, maybe two, and the other team would have the puck and either clear or put it into the empty net.
On this night, the Blues retained puck control, got shots and also picked up the rebounds. They held it in the Stars’ zone for a long time and created several chances with that zone time. Obviously, not scoring is a downer, but at least it gives you hope.
The Blues almost always gave up empty net goals the last few years. If their control and positional awareness have improved to the point where you can trust them to stay on the attack while trying to score those tying goals, then final scorelines should be much more respectable, even if it still ends in a loss on some nights.
Cons – Special Teams
The biggest downfall of the 2018-19 team, and that of several Blues teams in recent memory, is that of special teams. 2019 is not starting off much better.
The Blues first goal against was a shorthanded goal. The Blues gave up 7 shorthanded goals in 2018-19 and the league average was 8. Not a stat the team wants or needs to keep up.
Worse than that, the power play continued to look lackluster and downright bad at times. There were glimpses of new wrinkles and a bit more zone time here or there, but we have yet to see any different results. A turd is a turd no matter how much you polish it.
St. Louis went a crazy 0-8 with the man advantage. You can tell me it is preseason all you want and these are not the line combinations we will see, blah, blah, etc. and so on.
If a team is undisciplined enough to give you eight power plays, you have to make them pay. The fact the Blues won the Stanley Cup with basically no power play is almost against the laws of nature. It is not something you want to try again.
We can hope that the addition of Justin Faulk will improve this unit, but how much can one man do?
Overview
Chalk this one up as a preseason game because if you do not, there is more bad to take from it than good. It is early, but there were just a few too many glimpses of things we already worry about.
Vince Dunn was still careless with the puck, turning it over three times. Jake Walman is beginning to look like a bust. After being drafted with a lot of promise, he just looks lost at times. Eventually, he needs to show something if he’s ever going to be more than a minor league player.
The haters will continue to point out that Jake Allen‘s save percentage is too low. There was not much he could do about either goal and I’m tired of that ridiculous argument that sometimes you just have to step up and make the save, but whatever.
Klim Kostin returned to the mortal world. After three goals and six points in three previous games, he did not register a point and was a minus-1 in 11:34 on the ice. That is another reason he should play in the AHL and get top line minutes and not play on the NHL fourth line where he would get that same amount of ice time or less.
In the grand scheme, we did not really learn much from this game. The NHL guys looked fine and ready to go. Nobody else made much of an impression.
As Bill Belichick would say, we have moved on and it’s on to Cincinnati (in the Blues case Detroit).