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Blues vs Islanders - Habs Recap & Road save % is a trainwreck

December 8, 2016, 5:04 PM ET [12 Comments]
Jason Millen
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The Blues pushed their home game point streak to 13 games with an overtime win over the Montreal Canadiens Tuesday night with the Blues rallying from a two goal third period deficit. With the win, the Blues took 9 out of a possible 10 points during their five game home stand.

The Blues went down 1-0 after a fairly even first period due to a very poor play by Jake Allen and Carl Gunnarsson. Watch the goal here and note the very poor rebound by Allen on a pretty harmless looking Thomas Plekanec shot and how Carl Gunnarsson gets beat both in position and strength before the puck goes off his foot and into his own net.

The Canadiens may only have outshot the Blues by one in the second period but it felt a lot more lopsided than the shots would suggest. Plekanec extended the lead to 2-0 on a very good backhand goal after a strong pass from Paul Byron. The play begins with a good play by Carl Gunnarsson, taking the puck to the net but nobody rotated timely to cover his defensive spot, creating the odd man rush the other way. Watch the backhand goal here.

Later in the second the period, the Canadiens hit both a post and a crossbar, I believe from attempts by Max Pacioretty and Shea Weber. The Blues were lucky to head to the third period only down 2-0.

I tweeted during the game that the Blues’ lines were in full blender mode. The stats proved me right with no forward trio being together even 13% of the time according to leftwinglock.com. Even more surprising is that 8 combinations were more than 7%. Compare that to the Jets game that had 4 line combos over 18% with only those 4 being used more than 4%. Coach Ken Hitchock really changed up the lines in the third period, reuniting Paul Stastny and Jaden Schwartz and it paid dividends. Stastny lasered a shot into the corner of the net about a third of the way through the period. Watch the laser here.
About three minutes later, Schwartz tied the score after a Jay Bouwmeester shot found its way to Stastny at the far post. Whether Stastny was trying to hit the net or pass to Schwartz is up for debate but Stastny did throw the puck to the far post where Schwartz buried the puck for the equalizer. Watch it here.

Schwartz ended the overtime with a backhand goal that was equally, if not more, impressive than Plekanec’s goal earlier in the game. Rarely if ever will you see two such quality backhanded breakaway goals in the same game. Schwartz’s breakaway was made by a tremendous pass from Alexander Steen. Watch it here.

With their home stand complete, the Blues will head to Brooklyn to take on the New York Islanders tonight. The Blues will be looking to turn around their road performance as they are only 1-5 in their last 6 road games.

The Blues and Islanders might be involved in one of the longest streaks in sports history. In every season series since 1993-94, one of the teams has been winless. Last year the Islanders swept both meetings while the three seasons prior were swept by the Blues.
The Islanders are tied for last in the Metropolitan division but have been respectable at home, going 8-4-4. They also have been a little better in their last 10 games going 5-3-2. The Islanders have a 5 game point streak at home, going 3-0-2.

The Islanders power play is dead last in the NHL tough they are only 2nd to last at home. Given the Blues are 2nd in the NHL in penalty killing, one would expect the Islanders to struggle on the power play tonight.

It will be interesting to see who the Islanders start in net but I expect it will be Thomas Greiss as he started both games last year, posting a save percentage over 95% and a 1.40 GAA. Greiss has a career 1.95 GAA and 93.4% save percentage against the Blues while Jaroslav Halak has a 4.56 GAA and a 86% save percentage.

For those of you not worried about the Blues goaltending this season, do you know that the Blues have the third worst team save % of the entire NHL and below 90%. They also have the 3rd fewest actual saves of any team in the NHL. The Blues have been above average at home but are dead last on the road with a save % below 86%. For those curious, the answer is not because of power play goals against. The Blues penalty kill is middle of the league on the road so you can’t say the save % is lower because the penalty kill has been bad. Interestingly, the Blues have the best power play on the road at almost 30%.

The Blues will start Jake Allen against the Islanders while the assumption is that Carter Hutton will get the start Friday against the New Jersey Devils. Both goalies have been poor against the Islanders with GAAs over 4.00 and 85% save percentages. I find this interesting as Allen has been strong against the Devils, going 3-0 with a 1.00 GAA and a 96.1 save percentage while Hutton has been poor with a 3.03 GAA and an 87.5% save percentage. Allen will be going for his 9th win in a row.

As to the lines, there was no morning skate today so my best guess is this:
Schwartz – Stastny – Steen
Farrbri - Lehtera - Tarasenko
Perrron – Lehtera - Jaskin
Upshall - Brodziak - Reaves
Bouwmeester – Pietrangelo
Gunnarsson – Shattenkirk
Edmundson - Parayko
Allen

The Blues called up defensemen Brad Hunt who was leading the entire AHL in points. He was ahead of names like Brendan Leipsic, Kasperi Kapanen, Jordan Weal, etc.

Jammer’s 9 NHL Nuggets
1) The Rangers and Blue Jackets success this season has been the result of ridiculously good shooting percentages as they lead the league with 12.6% and 10.2%, respectively.
2) What happens to the Rangers as the Blue Jackets as their shooting percentage normalizes?
3) The Panthers and Sharks are in the bottom of the league in shooting percentage at less than 8%. Look for them both to climb up the standings as those normalize.
4) The Stars have the worst save % in the NHL and not surprisingly have the highest GAA.
5) The Sabres have an awful 5.5% shooting percentage at home.
6) The Red Wings power play is terrible on the road at 5.7%.
7) The Blackhawks are winning at home in spite of their home penalty kill which is an NHL worst 66.7%.
8) The Canadiens have a 95.1% home save percentage.
9) The Wild have a 93.3% away save percentage.

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 donate in their name.
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