On Saturday night, the Blues rebounded from their 5-2 loss to the Bruins with a 3-2 victory over the Senators. In many respects the game was a good illustration of the season but in others it may be another sign of how the season is changing.
As has been the case most of the season, the Blues seemed to play to the level of their competition. While the Blues outshot the Senators 11-6 in the 1st period, the period was dominated by sloppy, poor hockey and perhaps one of the worst periods we have seen from Jaden Schwartz for some time.
The Senators opened the scoring when Nick Paul beat Jaden Schwartz to the front of the net and one-timed a pass through Jordan Binnington’s 5-hole. Binnington got a piece of it, actually a lot of it but it still made its way into the net. As a goalie, I hate these kind of goals because you know you were so close to making the save but didn’t do just enough. The goal isn’t on him, it’s really on the Blues team defensive coverage and specifically on the poor wall play by Vince Dunn and on Schwartz for getting beat to the front of the net.
The Blues would get the goal back less than four minutes later thanks to a great face-off win by Ryan O’Reilly and the corresponding pass along with a vintage Vladimir Tarasenko wrist shot. As I said a week or so ago, it appears Tarasenko’s release is back.
Luckily for the Blues, the team and Schwartz rebounded to start the 2nd with the Blues taking the lead on a Dunn goal with less than three minutes left. Dunn would make a play at the offensive blue line to keep the pressure on.
Shortly thereafter, he would receive a pass from Robert Bortuzzo with time and space, ripping a shot past Craig Anderson.
The Blues would earn a late power play with Schwartz drawing a tripping call on Christian Jaros with only 7 seconds left.
Unfortunately for the Blues, they had perhaps their worst power play of the season, something that is hard to accomplish given some of the others this year and surrendered an easy power play goal to former Blue Magnus Paajarvi. Watch it
here.
The Blues would get the game winning goal a little over eleven minutes later on a controversial play. The play really is keyed by a strong play by Tarasenko, protecting the puck and moving it to Pat Maroon.
Maroon then moves the puck to O’Reilly who gets a good shot off. Anderson makes a good save and appears to have the puck covered when Maroon knocks it free. The puck moves around to Carl Gunnarsson who blasts it past Anderson.
You can see the ref skating toward the net with his whistle in his mouth ready to blow the play dead but by the time he gets a confirmation look, Maroon has knocked the puck free. It’s a tough break for the Senators and Anderson and could have gone either way.
Senators coach Guy Boucher challenged the play for goalie interference. I don’t believe for a second that he was really challenging for that call. Instead, he used the challenge as a timeout and as an opportunity to show the referees the call that he felt was blown. Whether or not the puck is frozen is not reviewable but making sure the referees saw the play and whether or not they feel they blew the call might be the strategy he was taking. I know I would have done so as it might help give his team the benefit of a borderline play later in the game.
One thing that I noted right away was Gunnarsson’s reaction after the goal. It was the biggest reaction from him that I have seen for as long as I can remember.
The news wasn’t all good on Thursday as David Perron missed the game and will not travel with team on the two game California road trip. It is assumed that Perron has a concussion but the team has not confirmed this. With Perron’s history, this might be concerning Blues fans a bit.
Robert Thomas (shoulder), Tyler Bozak (concussion) and Zach Sanford (shoulder) are traveling with the team to California but none are expected to play today.
Today the Blues will play the Kings in a rare 3pm start. The Kings are the worst team in the NHL, lowest points percentage though they beat the Blues 2-0 earlier this year in St. Louis. The Kings struggles are mainly due to their lack of scoring as they sit last in the league in goals per game and 6th worst on the power play. When you pair that with middle of the road goals against averages and the 2nd worst penalty killing and you have a recipe for being worst in the NHL.
Anze Kopitar leads the Kings in points with a meager 32 in 48 games. Kopitar also leads in goals with 13.
Jonathan Quick is also having a down year, stopping only 90.3% of the shots he is facing.
For the Blues, it sounds like Berube is bucking the statistics and going with Binnington today in Los Angeles. Allen has been lights out against the Kings with a 94.1% save percentage and a 1.82 goals against but has struggled to get goal support, only going 5-3-0.
I’m assuming the lineup will stay the same and look like this:
Maroon - O'Reilly – Tarasenko
Schwartz - Schenn – Steen
Blais - Sundqvist - Kyrou
Nolan - Barbashev - MacEachern
Gunnarsson - Pietrangelo
Bouwmeester - Parayko
Dunn - Bortuzzo
Binnington
NHL Champions for Charity
We’ve gotten some traction on the charity wager among the Central Division bloggers. The second charity I’ll highlight is Paws in Motion which is run by the Winnipeg Humane Society
https://www.whspawsinmotion.ca/from your Jet’s Blogger
Peter Tessier. Paws in Motion works and walks toward a future where no dogs, cats, or critters need to suffer from hunger, homelessness, or neglect. They believe all animals deserve to live happy and healthy lives with loving families.
It’s a great day for hockey.
St Louis Blues Blogger • 
Join the Discussion:
»