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Steve Ott Scores In OT Loss

December 21, 2014, 1:49 AM ET [68 Comments]
Randall Ritchey
St Louis Blues Blogger • RSSArchiveCONTACT
The Blues held a 2-1 lead late in regulation, but a failed clearing attempt by Jay Bouwmeester allowed Marc-Edouard Vlasic to tie the game with 20 seconds left in the game.

Andrew Desjardins scored the first goal of the game, halfway through the second period. A shot from a bad angle beat Jake Allen and put the Sharks up 1-0.

Allen should have had the Desjardins shot, and he knew it. His reaction to the goal was a clear sign that he knew he should have had that goal.

Patrik Berglund tied the game after jumping on an Alex Pietrangelo rebound and backhanding the puck past Antti Niemi. Dmtrij Jaskin made the entire play, showing great patience before feeding Pietrangelo for the shot on goal.

Steve Ott put the Blues ahead with his first goal with the St. Louis Blues, snapping a 58 game goalless drought. The play was made due to a beautiful pass by Maxim Lapierre, to catch Ott on a breakaway. Ott fired the puck between the legs of Niemi to put the Blues up 2-1.

Steve Ott's First Goals As A Blue



The goal would stand until the last 20.6 seconds of the game, when Vlasic beat Allen to tie the game.

Now the issue with the tying goal, is the fact that all game long Alex Pietrangelo and Chris Butler played together, while Kevin Shattenkirk was paired with Jay Bouwmeester.

On the game tying goal, Jay Bouwmeester was back with Alex Pietrangelo, and it resulted in a goal. Bouwmeester failed to clear the puck, and Pietrangelo screened Allen, and had the puck deflect off of his skate and between the legs of Allen.

On Brent Burns game winning goal, Jay Bouwmeester had the chance to hoist the puck out of the zone after Backes recovered the puck off the face-off. He failed to clear the puck, again, and it resulted in the game winner.

Last season, the Bouwmeester-Pietrangelo pairing was fantastic. This season has been an entirely different story. Both players have looked severely average, and have been hemmed in the defensive zone far to often. When they were split up tonight, they played fairly good games, Pietrangelo especially. Yet they got together again, and a pair of goals came as a result.

I understand the Blues were on the penalty kill when Burns scored the game winner, but the puck should have been cleared when Bouwmeester had the opportunity.

The Blues could have walked away from the last two games with four points, but blowing leads results in just one point, and a lot of question marks.

Many people are saying, "look at the standings" in defense of the Blues this season, and yes, a 22-10-2 record is never a bad thing. But that's been a result of the offense dominating games, not because of their stellar defensive game.

The Blues have the best power play in the entire NHL, which is great. Their penalty kill? Ranked 24th in the league. Buffalo and Edmonton have better numbers on the penalty kill than the Blues do. Let that sink in a bit.

Now this isn't all on the Blues defense, the two-way play of the forwards hasn't been that great this year either. But when trade rumors pop up, and people quickly throw them out the window because the Blues are "playing fine". Look deeper into the numbers before you just say no to a possible deal being made.

A lot of these numbers have to do with the poor play of Pietrangelo. He's a -10 on the season, ranked 727-out-of-764 players in the NHL. On a team that is +18 for goals for vs goals against.

Now I'm not jumping on the bandwagon screaming "trade Pietrangelo", but something needs to give in his play this season.

If you were the general manager of the Blues, what would you do to "fix" the defensive woes the Blues have suffered this season?
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