St. Louis Blues Pros/Cons 2024-25 Game 3

The St. Louis Blues finished off their season-opening western trip against the Vegas Golden Knights. It was a back and forth opening.

The Blues managed to get on the board first for the first time in 2024-25. Jordan Kyrou found a streaking Pavel Buchnevich, who then took advantage of a miscue by a defender. Buchnevich buried a backhande past the glovehand and it was 1-0.

Unfortunately, that was short lived. Former Blues sparkplug Ivan Barbashev found Jack Eichel with a cross ice pass and he cut back the other way to tuck it behind Jordan Binnington.

The Blues didn't muster an answer. They failed to even get a shot on goal in the last 7:30 of the period.

The Knights' top line struck again shortly before the end of the period. This time it was Barbashev fed a pass in the slot and he banged it home for a 2-1 lead going into the intermission.

The Blues had an initial push early in the second period. They had some good chances, but Aiden Hill made the stops to keep the lead.

Then, Vegas doubled the lead on an unfortunate sequence. Colton Parayko got taken out of the play with a shot to the ankle. The Blues then had a clearing play go off their own player's heel and Vegas had a clear lane on the shot from the right circle to make it 3-1.

The Blues did find an answer a little over seven minutes into the second on the power play. St. Louis had quick passes from the point and then circle to circle where Buchnevich quickly buried his second of the game to make it 3-2.

The teams traded chances back and forth in the third, but Vegas got the next goal. Around 13 minutes in. A seemingly simple shot from the left point got deflected at the last moment and it was 4-2.

St. Louis wasn't done though. Minutes later, the Blues gathered a turnover in the neutral zone and sprang a breakaway for Robert Thomas. He snapped it high to make it 4-3.

Sadly, that's how the game would end. The Blues had a late power play and also pulled the goaltender once that was elapsed, but couldn't really get anything set up on either.

Con: Forcing another comeback

The hope was that scoring the first goal would give the Blues an edge for the game. That didn't happen once the Blues allowed the tying goal so quickly afterwards.

Then, they fell behind 3-1 and 4-2. Eventually, you just run out of comeback attempts and that's what happened to the Blues.

Credit to them for making it close until the very end, but you can't have an entire season of comeback attempts.

Pro: Pavel Buchnevich

We used to see Vladimir Tarasenko terrorize the Blackhawks. Now, we seemingly get to see Pavel Buchnevich light it up against Aiden Hill.

Buch has had a lot of success against Hill and the Knights. He added two more goals to his tally in this contest and gave the Blues every opportunity to win.

Pro: Jordan Binnington

This game really wasn't as close as the final score would indicate. The Blues played with the Knights pretty well between the lines, but the reality is that Binnington kept this game close.

The amount of high danger saves he made was a lot higher than you would like. Yes, the Blues had some of their own and Hill was on point too, but the truth is Binnington kept it close when it could have been 4-1 or 5-1 before any comeback was even in store.

Overview

This was simply a loss to a better team. It's good to know the Blues can hang with teams like Vegas, but St. Louis isn't as good as they are.

You wan to steal those games here or there, but you don't expect it. The Blues goalie kept them in it and the top players had pretty good games.

Yet, the end result is what should have happened given what transpired over the course of 60 minutes. Vegas had more chances, took care of those and got the win - plain and simple.

I like the fact the Blues never gave up. It shows resiliency and tenacity.

However, as mentioned earlier, you can't keep coming from behind. Eventually a lead needs to stick.

But, it's one game and very early in the season. If you told fans they'd have six points and be in every single game on this trip, almost everyone would have taken it.