St. Louis Blues Pros And Cons From Game 10 Vs. LA Kings

Coming off one of their best performances of 2019-20, the St. Louis Blues needed a good follow up performance to show they could get into the groove. Getting that against Los Angeles can prove difficult.

The St. Louis Blues played their best game of the season in the last one against the Colorado Avalanche. Playing against the Los Angeles Kings was going to show if that was a one-off or a solid trend.

Alas, the game did not start as well as the Blues might have liked. St. Louis did not really play that poorly in the opening minutes, but they failed to get a shot on goal for the first four minutes, which is becoming a disturbing trend.

On top of that, the Kings managed to score first. The Blues have the offensive talent to come from behind, but it is still not something they are terribly good at, despite their ability to not give up.

St. Louis did show some good life after that, putting some pucks on goal and barely missing some chances in tight. Then, they did tie the game up 1-1 and scored on the power play to ice that cake.

However, that joy soon turned to sadness. Vladimir Tarasenko mysteriously left the game in the first period with an “upper body injury” that looked like another shoulder issue.

Cons: Tarasenko injury

For right now, we do not know anything about Tarasenko’s injury other than it was called an upper body injury and he missed the final two periods. The worry is that this is going to be long term.

Watching the replays, there did not appear to be any clear reason Tarasenko would have been injured. His left elbow/forearm was up near the chest/neck of his opponent to shield him off. Tarasenko seemed to feel something happen and give up on the play.

After all that, they showed him on the bench with one shoulder sitting lower than the other. I am no doctor, or anything even close to the medical profession, but that would seem to be a shoulder that got popped out.

Best case scenario is it can be put back into place and it is just sore. Worst case scenario is Tarasenko did more damage to already surgically repaired shoulders.

It would be bad enough to lose him for any length of time. It is salt on the wound that he was riding a five-game point streak and was looking like he was in the midst of one of his goal-scoring hot streaks.

Pros: Power Play

When was the last time we could actually count the power play as a positive for the Blues? I’m sure it is not as long ago as it seems, but it feels like it has been years where you actually counted this unit as such a positive for St. Louis.

On the negative side, the Blues did still waste one power play with poor zone entries. Those allowed the Kings to have some short handed opportunities, which St. Louis simply has to find a way to eliminate.

However, for this game, you could almost forgive that. The Blues got three of their first four goals on the power play.

On top of just scoring, the unit actually looked like a power play unit. They were able to pass the puck around with fluidity and get the Kings on their heels.

Much like the time the Blues scored on a delayed penalty, they were quick with the passes and on point. On the second power play goal, the Blues had all five guys touch the puck, which gets the defenders moving, not allowing them to settle into their defensive box, and opens up more space.

Scoring two goals seemed like an extra bonus and a much needed one. There was nothing bad about the Blues five-on-five offense, but they needed those power play scores to take the lead 3-2. Getting two goals from defensemen, after St. Louis had one of the better offensive defending groups last season, made it even better.

The Blues later added a third power play goal. At the time, it seemed like just an insurance goal, but it was was a pretty play.

Again, the Blues showed some great passing and vision. Jaden Schwartz kept himself rolling on the offensive end with a nice cross-ice pass right onto the tape of Brayden Schenn, who had a simple tap in. It was about as smooth and precise as you can get.

Cons: Soft goals

Before anyone immediately jumps into the comment section, calling a goal soft is not an automatic indication the goaltender had something to do with it. In this case, that is not that true.

That said, it did not feel like either of the first two goals for the Kings were earned. They were not based on luck, but they could have been avoided.

On the first goal, it was soft due to the Blues being soft. Instead of getting the puck out with force and just taking an icing call, Ryan O’Reilly turned the puck over on a weak backhand out of the zone.

O’Reilly is normally one of the team’s best defensive forwards, but on this one occasion, he needed to be stronger on the puck. That led to a couple quick passes for the Kings and they simply outwaited Binnington and put the puck in.

The second goal was not really anyone’s fault, though I feel like Alex Pietrangelo could have been a little stronger than the weak little off-hand jab he utilized. That said, even though the puck was deflected, it still felt like a save that Binnington was capable of making.

Again, that’s not a shot at Binny. He made several saves throughout the night that bailed out his teammates. It is just an opinion on that one play.

Pros: Key guys staying hot

The Blues are one of those teams that truly are the whole being greater than the sum of the parts. They need all four lines and all 18 skaters doing their job to be successful.

Even knowing that, you still need your guys that have more skill to be your best players. St. Louis had just that in the Colorado game and this game too.

Schenn’s first goal was a thing of beauty on the power play. He ended up with two goals on the night, scoring an empty net goal that has been somewhat of a mythological creature to the Blues.

Schenn now has eight goals in 10 games. He also has a total of 11 points.

Schwartz, as mentioned, kept up his hot streak. He now has points in six-straight game. The only downfall with Schwartz is that he only has one goal to this point.

Adding his name to the hot guys was Thomas. Thomas has not been hot of late, but he was definitely a big part of this game. Thomas looked like he had scored earlier in the game and then actually did score on what proved to be the game winner. His overall offensive game seemed to click right when the team needed him to step up.

Overview

Losing Tarasenko is a huge loss. We can only cross our fingers that the team just wanted to be cautious and not expose him to further physicality. For all we know, he might be back the next game. That seems doubtful though.

However, outside of that, this was a great performance of the Blues. It was the perfect performance to back up what they did against Colorado.

The overall shots were even, but it just felt like the Blues had the better of the chances. St. Louis outhit the Kings by a decent margin and kept their giveaway numbers extremely low with only three all game.

It would be extremely hard to do in hockey, but this is one game I wish they kept passing stats the way they do in soccer. St. Louis probably connected on 70% of their passes.

The biggest weakness of St. Louis, overall, was their zone exits and entries. That has somewhat been the case all season, so it is a little disappointing that it has continued even as the rest of the game has been cleaned up for St. Louis. If they could be more consistent and solid on those entries and exits, they would be near impossible to take down.

Offensively, this was a rare case where the five-on-five play was not all that impressive. There was nothing bad about it, but it was sort of mundane.

Next. Zach Sanford must be more than just a role guy. dark

Fortunately, the power play actually showed up and helped put this team over the top.

I do not know if you would classify this as a full 60 minutes or not, but there was not really any prolonged period where the Blues took their eye off the prize. You are going to have missteps throughout any game, but St. Louis was very good against the Kings. Couple that with the Colorado game and you have a fantastic end to the home stand before the Blues go out on the road.

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