St. Louis Blues: On The Fourth Day Of Bluesmas 2020

On the fourth day of Bluesmas, our true love gave to us – four goals a plenty for the St. Louis Blues.

Though this article comes a couple days after the actual anniversary, for the fourth day of Bluesmas, we focus on the four goals the Blues scored against the Chicago Blackhawks one year ago. It was a rivalry night to remember against the former champions.

The Blues and Blackhawks have had plenty of great moments during their rivalry years. From the Blues perspective, most were a bit more in the past.

Of course, we all remember (at least those of us alive at that point) the Blues sweep of Chicago in the playoffs and Ed Belfour going ballistic. There’s the St. Patrick’s Day Massacre – that’s a fun one.

In more recent times, we have Troy Brouwer‘s goal and the Blues finally vanquishing the Blackhawks back in 2016. While the Blues did not win the Stanley Cup that year, it was still a very large monkey off the back.

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Other than that brawl, many times regular season games don’t stand out as much. December 14, 2019 was a little different.

The Blues had just beaten the Vegas Golden Knights two nights prior, which ended a three-game losing streak. Perhaps St. Louis was riding a little too high.

Despite not being the same championship team, the Blackhawks still possessed a lot of weapons and jumped out to a 3-0 lead. They scored 19 seconds into the second and 30 seconds into the third, before completing their triplet of goals around four minutes into the final frame.

Instead of standing around, slack-jawed, the Blues got to work right away. A mere 24 seconds after Patrick Kane had tripled the lead, Tyler Bozak scored the first of his two goals on the night. The second would not come for almost nine minutes, so the Blackhawks seemed as though they had breathing room.

The Blues did not let up. Bozak cut the lead to one and Jacob de La Rose tied it just 12 seconds later, leaving Chicago as the stunned team.

Then, almost as a Christmas miracle, Justin Faulk would score the game-winning goal in regulation. Though brought in as an offensive force, Faulk had struggled to click with his new team and only had one goal to his name by the time this game rolled around.

For him to score the game winner against the Blues main rival right before the holidays put people in a much better mood about him – at least for awhile. He did try to sabotage that by taking a silly delay of game penalty, giving the Blackhawks a power play for the final 1:55 of the game, but thankfully the Blues killed it off.

For me, personally, this game did not have the same flare as the comeback win against Toronto many years prior. In terms of regular season games, I’m not sure if anything touches that one.

However, this one was also a big win. It was the second win in an eight-game win streak that would only be spoiled by a New Year’s Eve loss to Arizona.

You can never discount any win against Chicago either, especially if you can twist the knife when they were so confidently ahead. To score all four goals in one period is just as impressive.

Some will say, yeah but Chicago is bad defensively and not their championship squad any longer. Whether they deserved to be in or not, the Blackhawks proved in the 2020 playoffs they are still a dangerous team and can hang with anyone offensively.

They looked like their old selves for much of this game and were poised to show the Blues the rivalry had not flipped just yet. St. Louis remembered their own championship form and tickled the twine a quartet of times to let us hear the Blues go marching in, which was simply fine.

Next. On the third day of Bluesmas. dark

Perhaps 2021 has more magical hockey memories in store for Blues fan. For the 2020 fourth day of Bluesmas, it is enough to remember that comeback win just a year ago.

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