St. Louis Blues Pros And Cons From Game 49 At Colorado

The St. Louis Blues had two things in mind about their final game of the opening half of the season. They wanted to have a positive feeling about the game and also a little revenge from the last time in Colorado.

The St. Louis Blues have had a fantastic first half to the 2019-20 season, which we already knew since game 41 was technically the halfway point of the year. However, fans and players alike have always thought of the All-Star Game as the unofficial midway point of the season.

With that in mind, the Blues had a unique opportunity with their final game before the break. Clearly, they had the chance to get a win and wash out the bad taste from the overtime loss to Philadelphia. They also had a chance to push away the memory of a 7-3 drubbing on January 2, 2020 against Colorado.

Unfortunately, neither of those things would happen. It would be a rather nightmarish game against the Avalanche that raised hopes, only to crush them into the dust.

Things started off rather poorly as Colorado intercepted a pass over center and sprung a counter attack. Nathan Mackinnon would score just 3:41 into the game on a backdoor play.

The Blues still managed to chip away at the game and get themselves back into it. A power play goal late in the period seemed to signal things were going up.

They were indeed going up as the Blues scored just 1:06 into the second period. It was a fantastic pass from Ryan O’Reilly to Oskar Sundqvist for a nice finish.

The Blues were assertive and playing well. Then, the wheels fell off.

St. Louis had two defenders try to jump into the play without it knowing it was leaving the zone for sure. The Avs picked it off and tied the game.

The Blues did not lock things down at the end of the period. They allowed the Avs to score two goals in 22 seconds. On top of that, the Blues took penalties back-to-back penalties to end the second period too. Fortunately, the Blues did not give up a goal on the ensuing five-on-three.

Nevertheless, that was all the Avalanche would need. St. Louis did make a game of it with a backdoor play to Alex Pietrangelo, but you just cannot spot a good team that many goals against.

You cannot continually rely on your ability to come back. Colorado would add an empty net goal in the final two seconds for a 5-3 win.

Pros: Perron

Everything happens for a reason. Even in the most testing moments, that is something I have believed for a long time.

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However, it is hard not to wonder how things might have been different if David Perron played his entire career the way he is right now. The guy is a legitimate scorer at the moment.

Perron is not a superstar within the league, but he is having a season that any top-line player would want. He added two more points to his season totals in this game.

Perron got the Blues kickstarted with a power play goal late in the first. His wrist shot on the power play was so quick and explosive, the Colorado goaltender did not even have time to move.

Perron also set up the goal that gave the Blues some life. He took the puck from Zach Sanford after the Blues won a scrum battle. Then, with a defender in his face, he still saw the open man across the ice and found Pietrangelo with a pinpoint pass.

Petro still had to finish it off, but it showcased the vision and talent that Perron has. The only negative about his play in this game and this season is the wonder as to why he could not have done it all the time.

Cons: Imploding

It is funny now that it is over, but the timing of texts can be so weird at times. Literally moments before the Blues took a dumb penalty in the second period, my brother messaged a family group chat saying how well the Blues were playing in the second period.

It was true. St. Louis had already grabbed the lead at that point and were starting to put their hands around the throat of the game.

Instead, Jaden Schwartz took a penalty that negated a lot of their momentum. The Blues killed that off, but then Perron took a bad penalty that put St. Louis on the kill again.

The Blues would take a total of four penalties in the second period alone. Surprisingly, none of the Colorado goals came on the power play, but all that time spent killing penalties sapped the Blues of energy and momentum.

The then tying goal was an example of how much Vince Dunn still has to learn. He tried sprinting off on the rush before knowing the puck was out and the Avs made him and the Blues pay.

Not surprisingly, it was the man Dunn would have been covering had he stayed in the zone that scored.

After that, the Blues started losing their legs a little. Instead of putting body on body, they were trying to reach out for pokes and that is when you get into trouble.

The fourth goal was one that Jordan Binnington would probably like to have back. Still, Sundqvist made a calculated gamble trying to go for the puck that did not work out and let a speedy player into the zone.

It was just a terrible meltdown of a 20 minutes. You might not even say an entire 20 minutes. The Blues were good in the first five or so, so a bad 10-15 minutes ended up costing them the entire game.

Cons: Turnovers

The Blues were credited with nine statistical giveaways. NINE.

That means they probably had twice as many turnovers since a giveaway seems to have very specific criteria. Worse than the total was where they came.

Too many of the turnovers directly set up goals or top notch chances for the Avalanche. In two consecutive games against Colorado, the Blues have shot themselves in the foot with turnovers in terrible spots.

On the first goal, the Blues tried a zone to zone, cross-ice pass. Plenty of things can go wrong with just one of those, but when you’re going blueline to blueline AND wall to wall, it just isn’t a great idea. The fact the Blues had so many guys going the wrong way because they didn’t expect a turnover compounded the issue.

Then, we have the defenders jumping up before they needed to. The team’s offensive defenders have enough speed they can afford to wait a moment. Instead, the puck was behind them and they were unable to recover after the giveaway.

Kelly Chase used to say on KMOX that the three feet on either side of the blue line was the worst spot to turn the puck over. For some reason, the Blues continue to do it over and over against the Avalanche and the Avs have scored 12 goals in two games in large part because of that.

Overview

I’d like to chalk this game up to one bad performance, since it really didn’t have a ton to do with the Philadelphia game. However, given the last two games in Colorado, this is actually a very bad result.

It is not just another loss. This is two, essentially blowout losses in a row in Colorado.

The final score looks better in this one, but you got outscored 12-6 over two games. Your hotshot goaltender, Binnington, suddenly seems to have a team in his head. Few of the goals in this game were his fault, but he still allowed four goals against. Binnington has now given up 11 goals in two games against the Avs in 2020.

St. Louis showcased the ability to come back, but sometimes it is just too much. We saw that against the Flyers. While the Blues pushed it to overtime, you felt lucky they got a point.

The Blues did not get a point in this one, but you felt it could have gotten worse if that second period went a certain way, i.e. the Avs scoring on some of those power plays.

St. Louis is still in firm grasp of the division. An eight point lead into the All-Star Break is nothing to be down about.

However, it could have been 12 points. If the Blues defending had been better, this game could have gone a different way.

If they would stop turning the puck over in some of the worst spots possible, they would have not given the Avalanche reason to think they can charge up the division.

Hopefully the Blues use the break the recharge their minds, because this was not the result of any kind of physical fatigue. The Blues just need to unplug for a moment and then come back ready to work down the stretch.