The St. Louis Blues have been a much more engaged, entertaining group since returning from the Olympic break. However, it started off pretty rough in their game against the Calgary Flames.
The Blues have been a little hit or miss in the first periods, but it was a big miss in this game. The Blues were shaky from the start and fell behind 1-0 in the first three minutes.
The first goal came after a turnover, and then Tyler Tucker compounded the situation with a poorly timed lunge to retrieve the puck. That allowed Connor Zary to drive in and scoop a backhander in for the first goal.
While the Blues finished the period down by a goal, it should have been more. The Flames had two goals called back in the first period, one due to an offside and another a high stick, and Calgary ended up with three overall goals called back. The game could have easily been 3 or 4-0 if not for those calls.
Instead, it allowed the Blues to regroup for the second period and count their blessings. The Blues were marginally better in the second, but not by a ton.
It was still a pretty mediocre period for both, with the Blues requiring some good saves from Joel Hofer to keep them in it. Combining the good luck and good goaltending, the Blues tied it on a nice snap shot from the left wing by Dylan Holloway that just snuck under the left elbow.
Calgary thought they regained the lead not long after, but that one was called back due to another offside. Things went into the intermission tied, but the game had become oddly testy for two teams that aren't really rivals, and both are currently outside the playoff picture.
The Blues continued to build in the third period. While they only outshot the Flames 9-7, they finally felt like the better team for long stretches.
It felt like it had escaped when Robert Thomas took a late-game unsportsmanlike penalty. He was slashed and crosschecked to no call, but the ref heard enough when Thomas kept chirping, but the Blues killed that off.
In overtime, the Blues played with fire by giving the Flames an odd-man rush, but Hofer made the save. Then, the Blues went shorthanded when Pavel Buchnevich got called for another high-sticking call. He may lead the team in the most uncalled for high sticking calls.
The Blues had one of their better penalty kills of the season and got it to four-on-four for the final moments. St. Louis even got a little scoop backhander by Buchnevich as time ran out, but the game went to a shootout.
In the end, as usual, the Blues just can't get anything done in the shootout. Jake Neighbours made no move and was easily stopped. Jimmy Snuggerud made a pretty good move, but ran out of space on the backhander.
Meanwhile, Joel Farabee just snuck one through the five hole and Matvei Gridin fired one over the glove hand for their shootout victory.
Con: Turnovers
As far as the official stat sheet is concerned, the Blues ended the game with 22 giveaways. That's far too many, especially when you consider we've seen plenty of games where we see all sorts of turnovers, but they aren't classified as statistical giveaways.
Adding to the problem, the Blues kept turning the puck over in the first period when the Flames were scoring their called-back goals. Some were so bad, you wondered what they were looking at.
On the first offside goal, Parayko fired a pass up the middle that was easily picked off. A turnover and a missplay led directly to the Flames' first goal, too.
It's understandable that mistakes happen in a game, especially when you're getting younger. However, it's more veteran players making the bonehead mistakes.
Pro: Good fortune
We can sit there and say the Blues were given justice from missed calls. I say they had some pretty good luck by having the record number of goals called back after reviews.
The offside calls were close enough that they honestly could've gone against the Blues. From the camera angles the TV crew had, it was hard to say with 100% certainty there was a gap between the puck and there was a question whether the puck had gone off Parayko on the high stick.
If not for those calls being reversed, the Blues would have been blown out and don't even get a point. They were reversed and the Blues nearly stole both points.
Pro: Neighbours
The more I see of this guy, the more I think he needs to be the next captain. I'm sure they'll give it to Robert Thomas, and that's fine, but Neighbours is the guy you look to to step up for his teammates.
Neighbours got penalized for roughing, but he came over and stuck up for his teammate on what he felt was an ill-timed hit. He mixed it up in scrums several times and was just a general good teammate.
The offense is alluding him for spurts right now, but you look to leaders for more than just scoring.
Overview:
8:30 PM CT is such an odd start time. It's just early enough to be annoying and just late enough to make it difficult to get a decent sleep.
However, all things considered, I think this was a just result for this game. The Blues played well for parts of the second period and much of the third, but it just wasn't enough.
Calgary wasn't the better team, really, but they were also good enough that they deserved to get the win. Both teams had good goaltending, even if it wasn't a shooting clinic overall.
The worry for the Blues is the health of Tyler Tucker. He left in the third period and never returned. The Blues do still have Matthew Kessel, but their defensive ranks are already thin, and losing another guy will hurt.
Still, this game continued a trend we've seen since the end of February. We're still seeing that the Blues aren't built to sustain wins long term, but they aren't nearly as bad as we saw for long stretches of the season prior to February.
There's effort there. The skill level is good enough, and there's just a general better feel about this team.
I won't be fooled like last offseason, where I thought they could contend for a top -hree spot, but if the Blues make smart additions while still leaving spots open for guys like Justin Carbonneau, they could be a lot of fun to watch next season. The big question going forward is will we see consistent effort from everyone and also why we didn't see that for long stretches in 2024-25 and most the season in 2025-26.