The last two Stanley Cup champions faced one another as the St. Louis Blues traveled to Washington. However, this was as far from a defensive playoff-type battle as it could be.
How ironic is it that in the 77th game of the season, the St. Louis Blues would be playing against a certain player that wears 77 that used to play for them. The Blues faced T.J. Oshie, Alex Ovechkin and the Washington Capitals in a late-season clash.
Both of these teams are capable of putting pucks in the net, which they did. Both are fair-to-good at defending, but they were not in this game.
It was the final game of a four-game road trip, so you might figure the Blues could be tired. That was apparently not the case as they came out and fired a shot right off the opening faceoff and then scored one shortly after that.
For the second game in a row, Ryan O’Reilly scored off a slapshot. This one was slightly more contested than in Florida, but it was almost from the identical spot on the ice.
One minute later, O’Reilly got his second. The pass came off the wall from the left. O’Reilly quickly fielded it, and snapped it through on the blocker side.
Washington was knocking on the door, generating some quality chances with about eight minutes left, but then Nicklas Backstrom put the Blues on the power play. After a Colton Parayko bomb, Brayden Schenn scored to make it 3-0 on the rebound.
Shots were 8-8 as the second period opened, but the Blues had the advantage on the scoreboard, up 3-0. That changed to 4-0 quickly as Schenn fired a wrister past the glove just 1:14 into the middle frame.
The onslaught continued as David Perron picked up his third in two games. Marco Scandella fished it off the wall, souped one to the slot and Perron fired it in to make it 5-0.
It should be noted that Robert Thomas got in a fight, the first of his NHL career and maybe his entire career. Is this real life? Clearly not.
The Capitals got a little glimmer of hope scoring on the power play just 1:59 into the third period. It was Backstrom making up for his previous mistake.
Evgeny Kuznetzov fired one in just about a minute and a half later. Suddenly, the game felt in doubt despite the Blues still being up by three.
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The Blues put the clamps on for much of the rest of the period, but the Caps would not go away. With just under a minute to go, Washington cut the score to 5-3, scoring off a deflected shot from the point that may have gone off a Blues stick.
But, unlike the Blues earlier in the season, this team did not panic. They kept their composure, blocked a couple shots and then got an empty net goal by Ivan Barbashev for a 6-3 win.
Pros: Key moments late in the second
Sometimes moments in a game seem unimportant or they happen earlier enough in a game that you forget about them. There were two such moments that would end up favoring the Blues given the final score.
The first was a partial breakaway by Tom Wilson with a few minutes left in the second period. Despite being in behind the defenders, Wilson fired it high and wide, not even generating a real scoring chance.
Not long after, one of the most clinical finishers in the game, Alex Ovechkin was behind the defense on the doorstep. He didn’t have much for an angle, given how close to goal he was, but you still anticipate today’s greatest goal scorer to finish. Binnington made a huge save with 1:41 left in the period.
As the game goes on, you don’t think much of those. However, given the fact the Blues were ahead 5-3 at the end, before the empty net goal, what happens if those go in? Potentially, you could have a tie game in the third period after the Blues were up 5-0.
Instead, the Blues win somewhat comfortably, by three, because of a big miss and a big save.
Cons: Defensive lapses
This one is hard to get a finger on. The Blues actually played a decent defensive game overall.
They held one of the league’s better offensive teams to just nine shots on goal through two periods. You would take that any day of the week.
The problem started late in the second and then continued in the third. Whether it was taking the foot off the gas or just Washington finding themselves, the Blues let too many people in behind them. They were rather fortunate with those misses in the second.
They were not as fortunate in the third. However, once they realized players were getting in behind, the Blues overcompensated.
They backed off too much. Each one of the Capitals goals, the scorer was either undguarded or the player that could have done something flew by. The example of the fly by is Mackenzie MacEachern brushing past the back of Dmitry Orlov, even though he could easily have hit him since the puck was in the vicinity.
The other two goals, the defenders backed away, allowing far too much time to eye up the shot.
Pros: Offensive domination
The Blues let themselves get a little complacent in the third period. However, for two periods, they were about as offensively dominant as we have seen in recent times. This was reminiscent of the Blues running up the score against Carolina back in February.
Goals were just pouring in from left right and center. Again, it was forwards doing the majority of the finishing too, which benefits this team as the season starts to wrap up.
O’Reilly got two goals, giving him three in two games. The same is true for Perron, who chipped in with one on this night.
Schenn’s second goal seemed like it would be extra frosting on the cake with the team up 4-0 at the time. It ended up being very important as it was the game winner.
You just hope the Blues did not use up all their goals.
Overview
If there was a post-game interview after this one, Craig Berube would have been happy with the win but surely would have said “That’s not how we play.”
I made the comparison to the Carolina game from February. Ironically, the final score in that was also 6-3. The coaching staff was not overly happy with the sloppiness there either.
The main difference was there was a slight more back and forth in that game. In this one, the Blues dominated, only to let their opponent claw back into it.
The main turning point seemed to have been a Schenn penalty toward the end of the second period. That’s what gave Washington the power play and the goal gave them hope.
Oddly enough, both Schenn and Backstrom made mistakes they would later rectify.
Still, a win is a win and you can’t knock having six goals in one game. Again, comparing to the Carolina game, you just hope this did not dry up all the goals as that game did.
After that game lost five in a row and failed to score more than three goals in seven of their next eight. They only had three or more in two of those eight.
So, we will see what happens. Next up is the Blues back at home against the Kings. Los Angeles is not very good, but neither were San Jose or Ottawa and we saw what happened there.