St. Louis Blues Pros And Cons From Game 42 At Colorado

The St. Louis Blues wanted to start a new winning streak to start 2020. Instead, they proved to be the losing streak ender again, letting Colorado run wild.

The St. Louis Blues kept themselves in the game until the very end in Arizona, despite not having their best game. Unfortunately, the same could not be said playing in Colorado.

The Blues did a very good job of defending the highest scoring team in the NHL in the first period. Alas, when you spend all your time defending, you don’t have opportunities to score.

The Blues managed to get almost the entire period until they cracked. One mistake along the boards led to a breakaway and Colorado grabbed the one-goal lead with 10 seconds left.

In the second period, the Avalanche did not miss a step. They kept all the momentum as though the first period had no end.

The Avalanche scored twice in the second period. One goal came on a five-on-three power play.

St. Louis looked terrible until about seven minutes to go in the second. The Blues chipped into the lead a little with a wraparound goal and seemed to finally get things going a little on the offensive end.

The Blues would gain more momentum with a power play goal of their own in the second period. Unfortunately, a late penalty against St. Louis gave the Avalanche a power play and a 4-2 lead after 40 minutes.

Things went off the rails from there. The Avalanche translated another late period goal into momentum for the third.

Colorado rattled off three more goals before the Blues would answer. It was a rather shabby effort overall and St. Louis fell by a score of 7-3.

Too much early defending, too much passing

Not everyone will have a problem with the Blues in the first period. I’m sure the coaching staff was perfectly fine with how the game was going.

My issue with the first period was the Blues were focused far too much on defending. That is all well and good when facing a team that leads the league in goals, but it changes how you play.

The Blues are at their best when they are transitioning between all three zones with fluidity and not focusing on any one area of the ice. It was not as though the Blues had no shots, but their focus was not on getting things rolling on the offensive end.

They wanted to limit Colorado’s chances and they did. The problem, again, is when you change how you play to focus more on how your opponent is playing, you’re giving them an advantage.

When that is the gameplan, any mistake sets the opponent free. That is exactly what happened.

Brayden Schenn made a weak pass toward the point. Justin Faulk tried to pinch, but somehow missed the puck and Nathan MacKinnon was off to the races.

Beyond the defending aspect in the first period, the Blues also passed up too many chances – literally. The Blues had two power plays in the first period and never really threatened on either.

St. Louis is at their best when they are making quick, direct passes. On these, the Blues tried to get cute with backhanded passes off the wall or blind passes. That is not St. Louis’ game at all and they got nothing out of it because of that.

Pros: Battle back

I pride myself on sticking with this team, having gone through some of the lowest lows with the franchise. However, game to game, sometimes it becomes difficult.

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This was one of those games for long stretches. Once the game got to 3-0 in favor of the Avalache, you just had that feeling the Blues were not coming back.

Thankfully, the Blues did not feel that way. Instead of playing for a two or three goal shot, which clearly does not exist, the Blues just tried to chip away at things and get some momentum on their side.

That happened with their first goal of the game. The Blues did a good job to hold the zone and then battle around the net.

Robert Thomas was not going to be deterred. He picked up the puck behind the net on a second opportunity and stuffed it in on the wraparound.

Then, just when it seemed the Blues power play was going to let them down for the entire night, it came to life too. Right off a faceoff, Alex Pietrangelo ripped a shot past an unsuspecting goaltender.

The game should have been right in reach at 3-2. Instead, the Blues kept making mistakes elsewhere.

Cons: Dumb penalties/late penalties

Based on the stats, the Blues are actually one of the more disciplined teams. Coming into this game, they had the eighth fewest penalty minutes in the NHL.

The issue is not frequency, but timing with this team. For the last week for sure, and perhaps the last month, the Blues have continually taken penalties at the end of periods and games.

You simply cannot be doing that. You are forcing your players to use up even more energy when they are at their most fatigued.

We can argue about the validity of some of the calls. The penalty at the end of the first, against Brayden Schenn, was slightly weak, but referees are going to call anything on the hands.

Colorado did not score on that, but the Blues were forced onto their heels. St. Louis would take another foolish penalty late in the second, with Jay Bouwmeester axe-chopping at the puck and tripping his opponent instead.

Colorado scored on that one. Not only was the penalty dumb, but the Avalanche regained a two goal lead just prior to the third period. Instead of being down by one, the Blues were down by two.

The Blues have typically been good at not taking penalties or killing them off. Recently, even if they do kill it off, it seems to happen at a time when it is most destructive to their own momentum.

Pros: Thomas

As bad as the Blues were as a team, the highlight was Robert Thomas. He scored two goals and was a ball of energy throughout.

Thomas was one of the few players that seemed to keep good control of the puck. He shielded the puck well and gained the zone too, even when he was by himself.

The goal he scored was a solid effort to get around the net at the right angle to stuff it in.

The second goal was even more of a one-man effort. Thomas made the Avs pay for a turnover and scored on what was essentially a breakaway, even if it came in “garbage time”.

While it’s great that Thomas had a great game, it felt like he was the only one skating and hustling the entire time.

Overview

This was a really disappointing loss. You could chalk up the Arizona loss to holiday fatigue and just one bad game. This one just seemed like the Blues not being interested enough.

Clearly, they wanted to win. However, they seemed unwilling to do the little things necessary.

It was too much like a Blues game from a couple years ago. The mistakes brought them down instead of having the team pick up their heads and get right back into it.

If you boil the game down to simple terms, the two late goals killed St. Louis. If they did not allow that late goal to MacKinnon in the first or the power play goal late in the second, who knows how this game might have gone.

Instead, the Blues just did not have their normal ability to defend. They did so well in the first period but seemed completely lost after that.

St. Louis ended up getting outshot 42-27. They gave up 22 shots in the second period.

Think about that. The Blues allowed almost as many shots in one period as they had the entire game.

Fans are, admittedly spoiled. We have gotten too used to having one loss and then right back on a winning streak.

Still, losing to the team right behind you in the division leaves a sour taste, especially when you have your second poor game in a row.

The Blues better shake this all off because they have an afternoon game coming up in Las Vegas on Saturday. They don’t want this losing streak running to three, especially not in regulation.