Follow me on twitter Follow @stlgoalie In an all too familiar pattern for Blues fans, the Blues played a pretty good road game but were unable to find a way to win the game, rather almost finding a similar way of losing yet again falling 3-2 to Dallas Stars. To many Blues fans, this loss may be almost as bad as the multi-goal blown lead in Nashville last month.
The Stars took the lead seven minutes into the 2nd period. Carl Gunnarsson held the puck in on the Stars left point but his shot toward the net deflects off the body of Jaden Schwartz and right to Antoine Roussel. Gunnarsson is trapped near the wall at the blue line while Colton Parayko is entirely too wide for my liking on the play. In my opinion, he should have shifted more toward the middle of the ice both for offensive positioning (allowing for an easier pass from Gunnarsson) and for defensive positioning should the puck get turned over (protecting the middle of the ice). The wide positioning of the defense and the quick turnover leaves an easy pass for Roussel to spring Tyler Pitlick for a breakaway. Pitlick makes a good shot over Carter Hutton’s shoulder for the goal. Watch the play develop here:
About 6 minutes later, Ivan Barbashev would draw the score even on what would almost seem like a power play goal. The Blues won the offensive zone faceoff and got the puck back to Vladimir Tarasenko at the blue line, between the circles. Tarasenko fed the puck to Vince Dunn along the boards for an open shot. Dunn shoots low for the chance of a tip or a pad rebound and gets the latter, the puck going right to Barbashev for an easy goal. You can watch it here.
The Blues took the lead with just over 7 minutes left in the game. Jaden Schwartz took the puck coast to coast and beat Ben Bishop to the short side from a wide angle. If you watch the play closely, you can see how Bishop’s arm is tucked back and in to his body rather than out front of his body. The former position works if you are wedged against the post but is terrible for trying to make saves if you aren’t pinned tight against the post. Schwartz puts it past him before he can get his arm sealed against the post. Watch it here.
Unfortunately for Blues fans, the Blues wilted after at Schwartz goal with the Stars taking all of the momentum. With about 3 minutes left, Barbashev gets walked as the Stars come off the wall creating a pass to the far side for a shot that goes high and wide. Alex Pietrangelo does a poor job of marking Alexander Radulov and then compounds it by being unable to react quickly to the rebound because he turns away from the high and wide shot. The pass from behind the net comes to the uncovered Radulov who puts it into the far side of the net. Watch it here:
The Blues barely held on to overtime, getting a break as the game winning goal is disallowed due to a leg sweeping motion as much as it was a kicking motion. For the vast majority of the 3 minutes of overtime, the Blues looked like they were on a 2 man disadvantage and the made it worse by poor puck protection and decision making, providing the Stars with two easy, defensive zone turnovers.
Some will blame the late game collapse on the short bench caused by injuries to Jay Bouwmeester and Scottie Upshall. This blogger thinks that is naà¯ve thinking as these types of mistakes and collapses have been all to frequent in the last month or two. Puck management and zone protection have been areas of struggle for this team, especially when in the lead and late in games. The points they are leaving on the table and giving away to other teams ahead of them may likely come back to bite them.
Of course, this may not matter. If the Blues have to try and climb the standings without Jay Bouwmeester and Joel Edmundson, their probability of success isn’t likely very high. Bouwmeester has been dinged up for a while, missing a lot of practice time, and left the game not quite midway through the 2nd period, not to return. Alex Pietrangelo already looks like he has been taking too many minutes and this isn’t going to make that any better. Jordan Schmaltz doesn’t look NHL ready and Carl Gunnarsson has been struggling the last few weeks. Vince Dunn is still pretty green and Robert Bortuzzo will likely struggle if they have to play him 18-20 minutes a night.
The Blues also lost Scottie Upshall with about 4 minutes left in the 2nd period though his injury should impact the Blues a lot less than Bouwmeester.
The standings are not aligning well for the Blues. They need to start a run soon and take care of business against the teams directly in front of them otherwise Blues fans won’t have to worry about coming up with the money for playoff tickets.
As a side note, the Blues have given up the 6th most 3rd period goals in the league.
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.