The St. Louis Blues were looking for their sixth win in a row to continue their streak. However, the New York Islanders were trying to hold on to a playoff spot out east.
The St. Louis Blues came in like a house on fire, having won their last five games prior to facing the New York Islanders. The offense had been rolling, scoring 19 goals in those five games too.
However, the Islanders came in as a desperate team. They had fallen out of a guaranteed playoff spot, having been passed up by Philadelphia, and were only three points from being out of a playoff spot altogether.
Knowing that, the Blues should have come out hard right off the hop. Instead, we got the usual slow start from the Blues that never makes any sense given how well this team can play when they are on their game.
Credit has to go to the Islanders who regularly have good starts. They scored the first goal of the game and, of course, it came on the power play.
The shaky defending continued as the Blues got caught in the midst of a line change after an awful pass out of the zone. There was nobody to cover the back side because Justin Faulk stepped up to guard the man at the blue line, Alex Pietrangelo, who made the pass, took the man near the net and it was wide open on the back door.
Thankfully, the Blues got one back late in the first. It was a nice cross-ice pass that set up a one-time shot to cut the lead in half and make it 2-1.
The Blues came back a little bit in the second period, though they basically did nothing on their power play to start the period. Still, they had some legs, led mostly by Jordan Kyrou who had a fantastic shift where he basically willed the puck to stay in the zone and get a couple decent shots.
St. Louis was doing alright offensively. They outshot the Islanders 10-1 in the second period, but there still was not a lot of flow to their game.
The Blues kept things going reasonably well in the third. However, it appeared hope should be lost when the Blues failed to convert on an empty net. Robert Thomas‘ toes were on the edge of the crease and yet he tapped it wide.
St. Louis did not give up though. Even though they gave up a prime scoring chance immediately after that miss, they kept plugging away.
It took until the final two minutes of the game, but they would eventually tie up the game. Vince Dunn let one fly from the point to make it 2-2.
Overtime was going rather poorly since the Blues did not touch the puck for almost two minutes. Regardless of that, the Islanders only generated one chance overall.
Then, the Blues finally poached one late in OT. Colton Parayko got the winner and the Blues steal all two points with a 3-2 win.
Cons: Berube overthinking
Credit the Blues all you want for their fight or battle back or whatever you want to call it. However, the issues with the Blues at the start of the game were quite the fault of the coach.
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Rarely has there been a time when you could honestly point the finger at Craig Berube for anything in his short reign as Blues coach. Almost everything he has done has turned to gold with none of the drawbacks of King Midas.
In this one, though, Berube seemed to overthink things. Sammy Blais was apparently dinged up or just not 100% in some capacity. That’s understandable since he took some big hits and another puck off the hand recently.
Yet, the Blues have three healthy forwards just sitting around, waiting for their turn. Instead, Berube messed up all the chemistry by going with the awful lineup featuring 11 forwards and seven defenders.
Unless you have an emergency, there is almost no need to ever have that kind of lineup. You’re forcing forwards to double shift unnecessarily and also going through a very weird rotation with the defenders.
You could tell there was a lack of chemistry, almost from the get go. The Blues even threw Robert Bortuzzo out there for a brief shifts as a forward. That’s just not smart when you don’t really have that much of a cushion in the standings any longer.
It did not help that Bortuzzo, who was put out there because he could supposedly help the penalty kill, was on the ice for the first goal of the game, which came on the Islanders power play.
Cons: Penalty kill
Anything and everything with special teams units runs extremely hot and cold. That is understood more on the power play, where the best units only score a goal three times out of every 10.
It is less understood when things start going wrong with the penalty kill. Nobody ever likes when their team takes penalties, but when you seem destined to give up a goal every time you go into the box, it makes things that much harder.
The Blues had killed off 17 penalties in a row, but St. Louis has now given up four power play goals in two games. Three of them came against Chicago, with almost all of them coming from distance because the Blues did not have someone to clear the front of the net.
That is part of the reason Bortuzzo was put into this lineup. The Islanders had been hot on the power play, so Bortuzzo was supposed to provide some grit and help keep them off the board.
His first shift out there on the PK, the Islanders get a goal. The goal was not really Bortuzzo’s fault, but he was not really clearing the net either. Bortuzzo was crosschecking the man in front, but that did not allow Jordan Binnington to see any better than if nothing was happening.
Regardless of the roster decision, the penalty kill has just been bad. They are not moving at all.
They just shuffle back and forth across the ice, staying in their defensive box most of the time. There is next to no pressure on the puck, allowing teams to shrink the ice.
Hopefully this is just late-season fatigue. If the PK is this bad come the playoffs, St. Louis is in big trouble.
Blues have allowed four power play goals against in two games.
Pros: Schenn
One of the bright spots, from an individual standpoint, for the Blues lately has been Brayden Schenn. Schenner had gone ice cold of late, but is now red hot just like that.
Schenn has goals in three straight games now, and they were all important goals. The one against the Minnesota Wild was the game winner, the one against Chicago was the first of the game and against the Islanders, he cut the lead in half and got the Blues on the board.
His goal to make it 2-1 was very fitting of wearing those retro 1990’s jerseys.
Ryan O’Reilly got the helper. Schenn finished it off like a left-handed Brett Hull, going to one knee to one time the puck past the goaltender and give him no chance to save it.
Seeing that goal with those sweaters brought back memories of Pierre Turgeon setting up Hull.
Pros: Offensive defensemen
That term, offensive defensemen, has become almost a dirty phrase among hockey fans. However, for this game it was a big reason the Blues managed to win.
Vince Dunn unleashed a bomb from out top to tie the game.
Funny enough, that was Dunn’s only shot on goal. A good time to take it.
That goal doesn’t happen unless there’s a good keep in at the blue line. The man that kept it in was Colton Parayko.
Parayko would be the top star of the game for one play alone, but that play is what led to his opportunity later. Because of that keep in, Parayko was given the chance to even get to overtime and then score the goal.
It was a one-man show on that play. Parayko almost lost the puck after crossing the line, but regained after the Islanders player overskated.
Parayko then charged all the way around the net, took advantage of the Isles goalie going for a poke and stuffed it in on the wrap around. It was his first game-winning goal of the season and first OT goal since November of 2018 and it came at a great time when the team was not at their best.
Overview
Thank heavens for the win, but this game was hard to watch at times. The Blues missed several open nets and just seemed off, especially in the first period.
For the longest time, things seemed like they would play out as I said in my preview article. The Blues could not afford to let New York get out to a lead because they are very good at sitting on it.
That almost happened. The Islanders were playing a neutral zone trap, or at least a present day version, and slowing the game to a crawl.
The Blues had plenty of shots by the end of the game, but far too many were one and done. I love this team and their will to battle back.
It would just be nice not to have to so much is all. Credit to the Blues though. They only allowed five shots in the final 40-plus minutes.