The Blues won their second game in a row Thursday night, defeating the Vegas Golden Knights 5-3. Coach Mike Yeo’s intuition paid off, keeping Oskar Sundqvist and Robert Thomas in the lineup.
A little over 2 minutes into the game, Sundqvist opened the scoring. Most fans were likely impressed with the way Sundqvist drove to the net and fought off the back check of Brayden McNabb to score from his knee with the spin-o-rama but his strong play started earlier when Sundqvist fought through McNabb’s check along the wall while getting the puck in deep. In the video below, note how Sundqvist pushes through McNabb’s check along the wall and beats him to the front of the net. Robby Fabbri also made a strong play on the forecheck, beating Colin Miller to the puck and chipping it behind the net to where Robert Thomas could feed Sundqvist in the slot.
Of course, as the Blues have been prone to do this season, they surrendered the lead less than 5 minutes later. This time more of a result of some bad luck as Joel Edmundson blocked Pierre-Edouard Bellemare’s centering pass but the redirected pass went right back to Bellamere’s forehand who lifted it over Jake Allen’s shoulder. It’s a tough play for Allen as he moves with the pass to be in position to stop a shot from former Blue Ryan Reaves (assuming the pass would have connected) and then has to try and recover back to get square to Bellemare. Allen gets partially square but not square enough to be in position to make the save. None of Allen’s options on the play are great (attempting to slide into a vh or rvh for example) though I would have liked to see him at least attempt to shift more toward the post. Even so, this goal can hardly be called weak.
Less than 3 minutes into the 2nd period, the Blues took the lead back on an easy power play goal by Vladimir Tarasenko. Once Tarasenko stopped Tyler Bozak’s deflected shot with a futbol style move, finding the net was quite easy. Pat Maroon may technically have gotten the secondary assist but it was his quick play that starts the real sequence that leads to the easy goal.
Stop me if you have heard this one this year but the Blues surrendered their lead again, just 23 seconds later on a deflection goal by Erik Haula. Alexander Steen is left to take a defensive faceoff when Tyler Bozak is tossed out. Steen loses the draw cleanly and the puck goes to Brad Hunt at the point. His low shot is deflected by Haula, going through Allen’s five hole. It felt like entire building deflated when the goal went in. The goal looked a lot weaker live given the shot and the subtle deflection. Some fans may feel that, while it would have been a tough save, this is the type of save the Blues need in these situations. The bigger issue is that the Blues continually put their goaltenders (and have for a number of years now) in these bad situations after scoring goals. Their 1st shifts after goals has to be one of the worst in the NHL if not the worst. Because NHL.tv is blacked out in my area for the game still, I couldn’t pull the video I wanted to show of the goal.
Less than three minutes later, the Blues would take the lead back on Sundqvist’s 2nd goal of the game. The play starts when Sundqvist breaks up the Knights rush at the Blues’ blue line. A back checking Thomas picks up the puck and rushes it up ice, leaving a drop pass for Sundqvist who beats Fleury with a good shot. Notice how Sundqvist changes the angle on his shot as you can see hear:
The Blues extended the lead with a little more than 5 minutes left in the 2nd period thanks to a one-timer by Colton Parayko on a brilliant pass from Ryan O’Reilly. Zach Sanford applies good pressure McNabb. His pressure is supported by O’Reilly who intercepts the pass that was deflected by Sanford. A good read by Parayko and a great pass by O’Reilly and the puck is blistered into the net.
Allen stood tall in the 3rd period making a number of quality saves while stopping 14 of 15 shots, allowing only a power play goal against where he had already made a couple of quality stops. For this Blues fan it was refreshing to see Allen make a number of big stops, preserving the one goal lead.
A quick look at the box score shows that Marchessault and Karlsson were both -2, Fleury stopped less than 81% of the Blues shots, the Blues power play was clicking again (1 of 3), Fabbri played less than 9 minutes while Carl Gunnarsson played less than 14 minutes.
Tonight the Blues will be looking to win their 3rd in a row when they host the Minnesota Wild. The Wild are fresh off a 4-3 win over the Edmonton Oilers. The Wild are a strong 7-3-2 this year but are only 2-3 on the road. The Wild are in the middle of the pack on the power play (15th) but very strong on the penalty kill (5th). Much like the Knights, the Wild buck the “fancy” stats with a 67% points per percentage even though they are being outshot 4 shots per game and have the 5th worst Corsi, both regular and adjusted.
Zach Parise and Mikael Granlund are averaging a point a game for the wild. Even more impressive, so is defenseman Ryan Suter who has 12 points and a game winning goal in 12 games. Devan Dubnyk is again having an outstanding season, posting a 93.7% save percentage. Dubnyk has the 8th best high danger save percentage and 3rd best mid danger save percentage.
The Blues are now only the 4th worst points percentage in the Western Conference. They have the 3rd highest goals per game and the 4th best power play. The penalty kill is average at 18th and their goals against per game is 3rd worst in the league.
Ryan O’Reilly has been better than advertised in my humble opinion with 15 points in 11 games and excellent in the face-off circle but even more impressive has been his work ethic and how strong he has been in all zones. He just doesn’t take a shift off. Speaking of the face-off circle, only Steen and Ivan Barbashev are below 50% in the dot.
We’ll see if the Blues can move over the 50% point percentage tonight.
As to the lineup tonight, Colton Parayko is sick and will be a game time decision though it sounds like there is a good chance he will play. Don’t expect the forward lines to change.
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.
St Louis Blues Blogger • 
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