The St. Louis Blues knew they were in for a tough game against Dallas on the road, but bad news gave them plenty of excuses to lose. They went the other direction with the result.
The St. Louis Blues were more than prepared to face one of their toughest games of the last couple months when they stepped onto the ice in Dallas to face the Stars. They had plenty of excuses to not have their A-game too.
St. Louis was without Alex Pietrangelo due to a stomach virus and they had lost Tyler Bozak to a lower body injury from the previous night. Considering the amount of injuries the Blues have sustained lately and over the course of the season, you could have understood if the Blues fell against their division rival.
Instead, the Blues managed to play one of their most complete games of the season. They crushed Dallas almost right from the start.
St. Louis got the first goal of the game within the first six minutes of the game. It came on a controlled scramble play. By that, I mean it appeared as though the Blues had missed a chance to serve it back out in front for an empty net with Ben Bishop out of the net, but they managed to slip it through the five-hole.
The Blues would double their lead before the end of the first period. This time it was a rebound goal, which again came within a yard or so from the front of the goal.
From then on, the Blues put on the highlights. Jordan Kyrou scored on a partial break after a nice stretch pass in the second period.
Jaden Schwartz picked up a much needed goal. Those two came within the first five minutes of the second period.
Colton Parayko pounded home an exclamation point in the third. He unleashed a one-time slap shot to make it 5-0.
Jake Allen deserved a shutout, but a possibly deflected puck snuck past him late in the game. Still, the Blues were dominant in every phase for a 5-1 win.
Pros: Thomas and Kyrou
While they weren’t officially on the same line in this game, Jordan Kyrou and Robert Thomas showed why they both need to stay on this team and why they could possibly be great together down the road.
On the goal they combined for, we saw a connection beyond just the pass itself. Thomas knocked the puck loose and could sense where his teammate was headed. Even Craig Berube called it impressive in the post game.
It was a fantastic two-way play from Thomas. It was just as good a play by Kyrou.
Instead of just using his speed and being forced to a backhand shot with the defenseman closing, Kyrou used his agility to slam on the breaks. That freed him up for a forehand wrister to the blocker side and a goal that showcased his skills.
Beyond that, he played a big part in the team’s first goal of the game. Kyrou collected a rebound off a Parayko blast and immediately tried to put it in on the backhand.
When he was denied, he could have easily just jammed it right back into the pads. Instead, he realized the goaltender was out of position, circled around the net and put it back out in front for Alex Steen to finish off. It was a heady play.
Beyond just the assist for Thomas, he was showing off his ablities as well. While we saw the same from David Perron in his young career and it came to little end, you still have to marvel at the ability of Thomas to stickhandle and cut around players at will. Just when you think he has to have lost the puck, he slices away from pressure and opens up gaps.
Both of these guys need to be Blues for a long time and we got a glimpse why.
Pros: Prayko
The confidence we are seeing in Colton Parayko right now is something special. He’s still growing as a player, if not as a person – his neck looked gigantic in the post game interview – and he continues to improve in all facets.
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We already knew he had fantastic skating ability and was a quality defender. He is finally accepting his role/abilities as an offensive player.
Prior to this game, Parayko led all shooters two games in a row. He was being smart with his shot selection, but not fearing to unleash his slap shot, which was something he seemed reticent to do earlier in his career.
If he keeps unloading like he has been, goalies will be wetting their pads. I know I would be if he came down on me like he did against Arizona or launched a missile like the one on this night.
Like Al MacInnis before him, he’s no longer just going full wind on every chance. He knows how to control it more and how to shape it, to borrow a golf term.
Offensively, he has owned the Stars too. He had a goal and three points on this night, giving him four goals and seven points against the Stars in 2019-20.
Of course, the big man did not forget his defensive responsibilities. He had one hit, two blocks and two takeaways. Talk about your complete performance.
Pros: Schwartz
If I was hard on Jaden Schwartz last night against Arizona, I have to give him credit in this game.
If Schwartz would have blocked a shot, he would have had a notch in every positive statistical category. He had a goal, assist (two points), a hit and a takeaway. On top of that, he had no statistical giveaways either, which was a departure from his efforts against the Coyotes when he was rather careless with the puck no matter what the stat sheet said.
He also picked up a goal by doing exactly what we wanted to see the previous night. He drove the net and then took a decisive shot.
After picking up a loose puck in his own zone, Schwartz actually started the play with a nice pass through the neutral zone to Ryan O’Reilly. Then, when he got the pass back he did not look for some other option that would have taken the pressure off him. He snapped a shot across the grain and beat the goaltender to the blocker side, like a shooter should.
It is easy for armchair quarterbacks to say what this player should do or that one. However, the flip side of that coin is when untrained guys like myself can see players passing up good opportunities, then it must really be bad. In this game, we got the Schwartz we need all the time.
Pros: Team defense
This was St. Louis Blues hockey. That is a tired, worn out cliche and often times it doesn’t mean the same thing person to person.
However, if we could have a dictionary version of that concept, I would point fans to this game. The Blues were dominant in just about every phase, but what might have been most impressive was the total, team defense.
It was not like it was just the back six making plays. It was not as though the defenders were making mistakes and the forwards covered up for it. Every single player out there did their job and it was one, cohesive unit.
The forwards left no gaps for the Dallas Stars to fill because their backcheck was so fast. The defenders limited shots with great positioning, solid stick work without taking penalties and by blocking shots. It might not have been playoff hockey, but it was pretty close for a game in February.
When the occasional mistake happened, Allen was there to bail the team out. The Snake made several key saves, but none bigger than three he made early in the third period. The game was technically out of reach at that point, but you never want to give an opponent early momentum in a period. Allen snuffed out all hope with those huge saves, including one where he was clearly beaten and made a fantastic stick save.
Overview
The only bad thing from this game was failing to get the shutout. However, I’m not going to waste enough words on that to justify it’s own section.
This is how we know the Blues can play, which is why it can be so frustrating when they don’t. The Dallas Stars are a good team and the Blues just pushed them around like they were from the ECHL.
As a fan, it was nice to see the shoe be on the other foot so to speak. The Blues have gone through enough of these games recently where they got beat up, outplayed and outhustled in almost every phase. It was nice to see the other team have to go through that. It also showed us that all fans suffer from the same short-term memory loss since Stars fans were booing this performance despite the team having been on a six-game point streak and winners of seven of their last 10 games.
The Blues came close to having shutouts in three straight games. Offensively, they were clicking and making the most out of their chances, since they only had 13 shots halfway through the game, but still had four goals already.
Beyond just this game, as mentioned in my preview article, this gives the Blues a bit of a cushion and potential tie-breaking scenarios. St. Louis is now four points up on the Dallas Stars, who have one game in hand. Just as important, it guarantees the Blues have won the season series, no matter what happens in the fifth and final game on February 29.
As my fellow BleedinBlue contributor Joe Ward put it, the pros were that the Blues kicked the Stars’ behinds (he used more colorful language). The cons was that the final buzzer meant they had to stop.