St. Louis Blues home opener: Game #4

Jordan Binnington for the Blues and Filip Gustavsson for the Wild were the starting goalies. For the Blues, Brandon Saad made his season debut.

The Blues penalty-kill tested was early with a phantom high-sticking penalty to Alexey Toropchenko and a pass through Colton Parayko and Nick Leddy put Ryan Hartman in alone and he fired it past Binnington. Hartman’s 12th goal against the Blues…his highest against any team. First shot of the game and down one early in the first four minutes.

Is this another comeback in the making?

Power play with 3:57 left in the first gave the Blues an opportunity to tie this one up. No shots on net as they struggled to get the puck into the Wild zone and have any pressure. First period ended with a point-blank shot from Robert Thomas fired over the net…a great scoring chance off a backhand pass from Jordan Kyrou. Blues had the advantage in shots for the period six to four.

The second Blues power-play opportunity with 12: 25 left in the second period, a period that the Blues had the edge in play and held the Wild shotless to this point in the period. And then…a short-handed break and a 2-0 lead for the Wild on their first shot of the period. The first power-play unit failed to defend the pass out of the offensive zone by the Wild.

Kyrou had a goal waved off as the whistle sounded prior to the shot entering the net. The crowd of course didn’t like it and the traditional “refs you suck” cries rained down from the stands. The Blues ultimately dominated the play on the man advantage with four shots but were unable to capitalize.

A power play for the Wild was called on a slash by Mathieu Joseph with 10:07 left in the period. Good effort to defend the short-handed penalty with big blocks and no shots allowed by the Wild, and the best scoring chance was for the Blues.

The Blues once again had the advantage in play in the period 5-on-5…unfortunately the scoreboard was leaning the Wild way with special teams’ goals from the power play and short-handed units. St. Louis dominated the shots on goal (19 to 12 overall) as well as 20 blocked shots by the Wild. And it wasn’t that close…in the first 36 minutes the Wild had five shots…and the Blues fourth line (which has played well in the first three games) got hemmed in and five shots are allowed in one shift.

A second waved off goal as Ryan Suter’s shot went in after the buzzer sounded to end the period. Not a good trend to say the least...

Comeback definitely needed in this one…

Less than a minute into the third period and a poor defensive play by guess who…Parayko and Leddy and we had a three-goal deficit. The top line of Thomas, Saad and Jake Neighbours were on the ice…and it failed to defend 5-on-5.

A defensive switch in the 3rd sees Suter with Parayko and Leddy with Kessel…did Banister see the same thing we saw?

Where’s the comeback?

On the 63 shot attempt by the Blues, Mathieu Joseph sent a wrist shot stick side and beat the Wild's goalie. A solid play by the third line kept pressuring the Wild in their defensive zone leading to Joseph’s first goal as a Blue.

With a bit over six minutes left in the third period the Wild equaled the Blues shots on goal at 24.

 A four-minute high-sticking penalty on Philip Broberg with 4:03 left in the game and the air went out of the Enterprise Center…oh and with eight seconds left…a goalie goal…Gustavsson flipped one from his crease and its 4 to 1 Wild. Shots favored the Blues 28 to 26.

Observations: Third line (Holloway, Joseph and Bolduc) and fourth line (Faksa, Toropchenko and Walker) continue to play well and need more ice time. Splitting up Parayko and Leddy in the third period a good thing…let's hope this continues…perhaps time to bench one of them in favor of PO Joseph or the season debut of Scott Perunovich. Faceoff wins continue to be a strength. Suter showing his experience and playing well. Top line playing against the top line of the opposition was not able to hold their own…

Next up the 1-1-1 NY Islanders