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Blues sleepin today in Philly, hope to not repeat it in Washington tomorrow

January 6, 2018, 11:47 PM ET [1 Comments]
Jason Millen
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The Blues 3 game winning streak came to a crashing halt with a 6-3 loss this afternoon to the Philadelphia Flyers. Some might look at Jake Allen’s 86.8% save percentage as the culprit for the loss but that would show they only looked at the box score which can be very misleading.

Allen contributed to the loss but he was one of many. This loss was a group effort with the team going down 4-0 before showing any signs of life. Maybe the team thought today was the 2pm start? They sure didn't look ready at noon. Let’s look at the goals against to illustrate how the responsibility was shared.

Just 2 minutes into the game, Alex Pietrangelo gets the puck in the low part of the right circle, near the wall. As he gets the puck, he has two Flyers in good fore-check position and Jay Bouwmeester as his only potentially passing option though Bouwmeester is in front of the Blues net which makes him a dangerous option. As Pietrangelo has the puck, notice that there are not any Blues in sight. There was absolutely no puck support for the defense on the play. Pietrangelo is checked off the puck and things go from bad to worse.

Scott Laughton grabs the puck and comes off the wall into a shooting position. Unfortunately for the Blues, Jake Allen stays along the goal line rather than coming out to challenge Laughton. As a result, Allen has made a tough save substantially more difficult. Watch it:


Less than 5 minutes later, the Flyers added to the lead from a lucky goal. Claude Giroux led a 2 on 1 in against Colton Parayko. As Giroux attempted to pass the puck, the puck deflected off Parayko and into the net. You can watch it here.

The Flyers extended their lead to 3 midway through the 2nd period on a play that saw a number of poor plays made by a number of Blues players. Watching the play develop in the neutral zone reminded me of the Ovechkin (see it here) and Crosby (see it here) controller disconnect gifs. The culprit I noticed was Brayden Schenn.
Schenn controller disconnect

As Jordan Weal drives to the net on the goal, Carl Gunnarsson takes a poor angle to defend Weal. Gunnarsson angles toward Weal, ending up behind Weal. If Gunnarsson takes an angle to the net instead, he may be able to cut off Weal’s option to cut across the net or at least pressuring him if he decided to do so. In watching Allen on the play, it also seems like he assumed Gunnarsson was going to take that option away, making it look like an easy goal for Weal. Defensemen often can help more by taking away certain shot selection of options on a play, limiting the options for which a goalie has to defend and react. Watch it:

A little over 3 minutes later the Flyers push the lead to 4. The play begins with a terrible read by Parayko at the offensive blue line leading to an odd man rush for the Flyers. Bouwmeester’s defense of the odd man rush doesn’t’ take the shooter nor the ass and Sean Couturier deflects a pass home for his 20th goal of the year. Allen had little chance to stop this goal. Watch it here.

The Blues tried to make a bit of a game of it with a nice backhand goal from Ivan Barbashev with 5 minutes left in the 2nd period and a goal from Paul Stastny 12 seconds into the 3rd period. Watch Barbashev’s goal here.

Joel Edmundson takes a holding penalty midway through the 3rd period and Wayne Simmonds redirects a shot past Allen to push the lead back to 3 goals. Watch it here.

After a Parayko goal with the extra attacker, Sean Couturier added an empty net goal.

A few notes that I found interesting after the game:
- Patrik Berglund was -3 with only 1 shot.
- Tage Thompson struggled and had 0 shots on goal.
- Barbashev, Tarasenko and Stastny with 2 points each.
- Gunnarsson and Bortuzzo didn’t even combine for 23 minutes.

The Blues will have to quickly put this game out of their heads as they will face the Washington Capitals tomorrow at 2pm CST.

The Capitals have been surging, winning 3 in a row, 11 of their last 15 games and earned points in 13 of those 15 games. They also are very tough at home with a 16-5 record winning their last 8 games at home. The Capitals haven’t lost at home in over a month, November 30th.

The Capitals are in the top 25% of the league in points percentage, leading the Metropolitan division, Their record is really impressive when you look at their rankings – 11th in goals per game, 15th in goals against per game, 21st on the penalty kill, and 16th on the power play.

As you would expect, Alex Ovechkin leads the Capitals with 26 goals and 43 points in 41 games. Evgeny Kuznetsov is second with 39 points in 41 games. John Carlson is having an all-star year on defense with 31 points in 41 games. Braden Holtby has a 91.7% save percentage this season with a 2.68 goals against average.

Many of the Capitals have enjoyed a lot of success against the Blues. Holtby has a 93.7% save percentage and a 1.80 goals against average. Ovechkin has 13 goals and 25 points in only 15 games while Niklas Backstrom has 19 points in only 14 games. Kunetsov has 5 points in 7 games while Carlsson has 7 points in 11 games. Former Blue TJ Oshie has 3 points in 2 games.

For the Blues expect Carter Hutton to get the start. Hutton has struggled against the Capitals with an 86.1% save percentage and a 3.66 goals against average.

Stastny has had the most success against the Capitals with 13 points in 13 games. Tarasenko has 5 goals and 6 points in 7 games while Parayko has 3 points in 4 games.

As to the lines today, your guess may be as good as mine but here is a possibility:

Forwards
Scottie Upshall - Brayden Schenn – Vladimir Tarasenko
Vladimir Sobotka - Paul Stastny – Tage Thompson
Patrik Berglund – Kyle Brodziak - Alexander Steen
Dmitrij Jaskin - Ivan Barbashev – Magnus Paajarvi

Defense
Jay Bouwmeester - Alex Pietrangelo
Joel Edmundson - Colton Parayko
Carl Gunnarsson - Robert Bortuzzo

Goalie
Carter Hutton

It’s a great day for hockey.

Fellow Hockeybuzz bloggers Nashville Predator's Paul McCann, Winnipeg Jet's Peter Tessier and Minnesota Wild's Dan Wallace have generously agreed to a friendly charity wager. We were hoping to do the whole division but don't have it fully represented yet. The blogger whose team finishes the highest the standings at the end of the year gets to pick a charity to whom the others will donate in their name.
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