The St. Louis Blues hit an official free fall as January began to end with losses in their last three games despite being the better team for long stretches. Could they be a better team than the Florida Panthers?
It didn't look good initially as the Panthers got the first goal of the game. The Blues were doing a good job of taking the body and following the puck, but a pass from the end wall still got out front, and AJ Greer was able to swat in his own rebound for a 1-0 lead, 3:12 in.
The Blues wasted little time tying it, though. Jake Neighbours, who was questionable to even play, got a breakaway and didn't even deke. He simply sniped it from the slot, and it was even.
Fellow injured reserve returnee, Jordan Kyrou, gave the Blues the lead almost eight minutes in. The Blues intercepted a pass through the neutral zone, and then Philip Broberg hit the trail pass to Kyrou on the left circle for the goal and a 2-1 score.
The penalty kill continued to struggle, however. Sam Reinhart tied the game just 19 seconds into a power play.
About five minutes after that goal, the Blues retook the lead. This time, Justin Faulk fought off three players and used a one-handed pass to find Jonatan Berggren for the whip-shot goal and a 3-2 lead with about five and a half left in the period.
The second period got crazy quickly. The Blues scored 41 seconds in and completed the hat trick of IR guys getting goals when Oskar Sundqvist scored. At that point, there had been a total of six goals on 18 shots between the two teams.
The refs got busy themselves, as they handed out eight penalties in the second period. Even if you take out the fighting penalties, there were six separate penalties.
Matthew Tkachuk went off at the end of the period. He deked Joel Hofer out of his jock strap and scored at even strength to make it 4-3 with about three minutes remaining. Then he scored on another deke fake to freeze Hofer and tie the game at 18:43 of the middle frame.
Despite the setbacks, the Blues bounced back reasonably well. They outshot the Panthers 7-2 at the midway point of the game.
The refs were trying to put the whistle away in the third as they missed a clear trip that would've given St. Louis a power play. Then, moments later, they did not call a high stick on Nick Bjugstad live, and when play stopped, they called it a double minor so they could review it. Even though there was no blood at all, the referees decided not to correct the mistake and downgrade it to a two-minute penalty.
St. Louis came close to getting a shorthanded goal, but came up empty. The Blues did kill it off, which provided some justice.
Things got testy late as Hofer mixed it up with Tkachuk behind the net, which made it four-on-four. Then Niko Mikkola hit Hofer, which made it four-on-three in the final two minutes.
The Blues nearly banged it in on the near side at five-on-four, but came up empty on that try. But, the Blues finally turned the tide as they went tic-tac-toe, east to west, and Pavel Buchnevich set up the one timer for Jimmy Snuggerud on the left circle and a 5-4 score with eight seconds left. The Blues managed to hang on even with a Florida push into the zone and won.
Pro/Con: Special teams
The penalty kill continues to struggle. The power play continues to bring this team's offense down.
However, for all their faults, they got it done when it was crunch time. Special teams ended up winning the game for once.
On the one hand, the penalty kill allowed two power play goals against, but it's hard to tell what the stats really were because Florida was 2-8, but how many of those were full power plays is a question. The big play was killing off the fake double minor and not even allowing a Panthers shot.
Then, even though they were 0-4 going in, the Blues won the game on a power-play goal. Again, hard to tell what the power play really did since plenty of their power plays were short-lived, but as long as the one goal ended up making the difference, it makes the difference.
Con: Joe Vitale
Calling a game from ice level is not easy. Even though these ex-players are used to seeing that vantage point, when you're trying to analyze the game, it makes it harder.
Vitale was clearly not comfortable with it. His delivery and how he saw certain plays were sometimes just wrong.
In the first period, you could tell he wasn't as comfortable when to chime in since he couldn't see his broadcast partner. On top of that, it took him two replays to understand that a rush play was saved by the goalie and not a shot wide. His continued talk about how missing the net leads to counterattacks made him look foolish, especially since Chris Kerber had called it a save on the live call.
Pro: Injury shmimjury
Apparently, coming off injured reserve is a good thing for this current group of Blues. They had three guys return to the lineup, and all three scored goals.
Not only did all three score, but they all scored the first three of the four. Neighbours and Kyrou came up with the first two goals of the game, and then Sunny got the fourth to double the lead at the time.
Add in two Kyrou assists on other goals, and it was an excellent night for the guys just re-entering the roster.
Con: Officiating
Fans are often overly critical of officiating in any sport, especially hockey. Although you can probably say they called it evenly between teams, the way they called the game was kind of ridiculous.
They called six penalties in the first period. Two were matching minors, so there were four power plays there. However, almost all of those were short-lived since even an abbreviated five-on-three for St. Louis got taken away with a call on Dvorsky.
As mentioned, the second period had eight penalties, six if you take out the fighting calls. If all these were egregious, you could let it slide, but some of them were very slight and could have been let go.
The penalties called were light enough to really shine a spotlight on the fact that they let stuff go in the third.
Overview:
You don't expect the Blues offense to conjure up five goals, so when it becomes a track meet, you figure it's not going to be your night. However, it was a win and a fun game to watch, even if there were some frustrating moments.
On the positive side, the Blues shot the puck. They had 31 shots on goal and even more pucks toward the net. I can't even remember the last time the Blues had double-digit shots in all three periods.
You got goals and contributions from your big guns. A three-point night for Kyrou. Buchnevich and Faulk had two points and Neighbours got himself going with a goal too.
Hofer wasn't spectacular, giving up four goals on 20 shots. As they pointed out during the broadcast, like Grant Fuhr, as long as you make that last save and your team gets the win, that's what matters.
St. Louis' inability to hold leads is problematic, but you got the win instead of letting it slip away, and points matter. The people who say tank for draft positioning can whine all they want - I want wins.
I'm not going to project this win forward in terms of future positive performances, but this team is in a really odd spot. You're still within wishing distance of a playoff spot, but haven't been consistent all year.
With that in mind, you should have beaten Dallas twice, the Kings once, and could have had a four-game win streak. Couple that with the three players that just returned, Pius Suter should be back over the weekend, and then Robert Thomas and Dylan Holloway will be back during the Olympic break, if not beforehand.
Do you keep that group and make a push, or still look to capitalize on trade value? Do you keep that group together even if the playoffs don't happen, and hope the next wave of prospects will simply supplement the team?
Every fan has their opinion, and I'm never one for unloading guys for the sake of it. Doug Armstrong has his work cut out for him, but for at least one night, I'm just happy with a win.