Follow @stlgoalie Like I said earlier in the season, the more things change, the more they stay the same. The Blues again followed up a strong game with an incomplete game and a defeating loss, losing to the Canucks 5-1 on Thursday.
The Blues dominated the 1st period but never capitalized, being stymied by a number of strong saves from Jacob Markstrom. They outshot the Canucks 15-5 but got no results and then wilted in the 2nd period where the Canucks outshot them 14-3 and scored 2 goals.
A very weak call on David Perron led to the 1st goal, a power play goal from Bo Horvat that would have gone in on any goaltender. The goal seemed to break the Blues with Adam Gaudette scoring less than 30 second later thanks to a very poor play in their own end by the Blues and a bit of a lucky bounce. You would really like to see goalie Jake Allen have a stronger butterfly on the play. You really need him to keep the goal as a one goal game at that point but this is the way the Blues season is bouncing.
The 3rd period started out poorly with the Canucks getting some quality chances and Allen making a couple of very good saves before allowing this terrible angle goal.
This afternoon they travel to face the Calgary Flames where they will be looking to avenge last Sunday’s 7-2 loss.
The Flames still sit atop the Pacific Division and are an impressive 11-3-3 at home and 7-2-1 in their last 10 games. The Flames have points in 9 straight home games going 7-0-2 in that span and are 9-1-3 in their last 13 home games.
The Flames are 5th in the league in scoring rate and have the 3rd stingiest defense. Their special teams are in the middle of the league. Johnny Gaudreau is 5th in the league in points while Mark Giordano is 3rd among defensemen and it tied for the highest plus minus at +21. Matthew Tkachuk is 2nd on the team in points with 41 in 36 games. Elias Lindholm also is averaging more than a point a game.
It sounds like Mike Smith with get the start in between the pipes and Michael Frolik could be back from injury. Blues fans hope Smith will be the cure for what ails them as Smith is only 5-15-0 against the Blues with a meager 88.2% save percentage. Smith is exceptional during the day though with a 92.8% save percentage in 29 day games.
Remember that old saying, if it’s broke don’t fix it? Oh wait that isn’t it but it must be the Blues new saying as they coming back again with the same linenup: Schwartz - Schenn - Tarasenko Steen - O'Reilly – Perron Maroon - Bozak - Thomas Nolan - Barbashev - Sundqvist Edmundson - Parayko Bouwmeester - Bortuzzo Dunn - Butler Allen
The Blues need to earn 70.4% of their remaining points in order to reach 99 points. They currently are earning 45.5%. At what point do they admit defeat on the season? How high does the future point percentage have to go it? In my opinion, they only have a couple of games assuming you don’t already think they are past the point of no return. Soon, #loseforHughes will be a real consideration.
NHL Champions for Charity We’ve gotten some traction on the charity wager among the Central Division bloggers. More on that to come.
It’s a great day for hockey.