The St. Louis Blues had their two-game win streak by the bottom-of-the-barrel Buffalo Sabres on Sunday afternoon, 4-2. It was an ugly loss, as the Blues did everything right except score more than the other guys.
Let's dive into it.
The one that got away
There is no other way to sugarcoat it. This was the one that got away. Two points, gone, never to be seen again. Let's just hope the Blues don't fall a point shy of a playoff spot at the end of the year because we are all gonna circle around to December 29 as being the reason why.
The Sabres are a hot team at the moment, as they are not on a three-game win streak. Something that the Blues just can't seem to piece together. Another thing the Blues cannot seem to comprehend is that home-ice-advantage is a key thing to have. They now fall to 7-9-1 on the year in Enterprise Center.
Binnington fell asleep
It is not often that you see a hockey team lose a game after securing nearly double the amount of shots on goal as their victorious opponent. That is exectly what happened on Sunday, as the Blues could not catch up and stay ahead of the Sabres. Even though, they won the shot battle, 37-16.
There are two sides to this coin. One, the Blues should have been able to pot more than two goals with those 37 shots. Buffalo goaltender Ukka-Pekka Luukkonen stood tall in stopping 35 pucks.
The flip side of that coin, the more obvious and apparent side, is that Blues goalie Jordan Binnington fell asleep in the net, allowing four goals past him on those 16 shots. A fourth of the pucks he saw went by him, and that is not great.
If the Blues want to move this franchise forward, they need to win games in more amounts than just two at a clip. Binnginton could have easily moved that needle against the Sabres, but his lackluster performance cost the Blues an attainable victory.
Powerplay is in shambles
This powerplay unit is not getting it. They are not grasping the idea that they have the man-advantage, not man-disadvantage. With another o-fer performance in that statistic, their near-league low of 15.4% continues to kill the mojo of this team.
Something has to change, and if it can't be done internally with the players already on the two units, then it is time to start looking elsewhere. After negotiating the deal to bring Cam Fowler over from Anaheim, they do look a little better, despite not showing the results. The time may be neigh to bring in one more piece to tie the powerplay all together.
Firmly, changing the lines around and swapping this player from the first unit to better fit in on the second unit, won't work here. The truth of the matter is that both units are horrible, and some players excel at the man-advantage, and some simply don't. The Blues have a lot of ones that just don't.
Who can save this unit, and help bring the Blues over the hump.