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Defensive mistakes doom Blues as the team gives away more points

November 12, 2018, 11:04 PM ET [10 Comments]
Jason Millen
St Louis Blues Blogger • RSSArchiveCONTACT


The Blues blew another lead and frittered away yet more points yesterday afternoon when they lost 3-2 to the Minnesota Wild. The Blues effectively lost the game in 25 seconds early in the 2nd period.

Oskar Sundqvist opened the scoring with about a minute left in the 1st period. Zach Sanford makes the zone entry and originally makes a poor play along the all but he stays with the play, battling hard along the wall.

The battle allowed Sundqvist to come in and work the puck free to Ivan Barbshev who then made a great pass back to Sundqvist for the goal.

Unfortunately for the Blues, the lead was short lived as they gave it back and more less than 2 minutes into the 2nd period. Joel Edmundson has a one long, two goals against rough shift. Watch here on the 1st goal as Edmundson needlessly cuts across to play right defense when Jordan Schmaltz is already there, leaving him man along the wall wide open. Schmaltz smartly rotates over to cover Edmundson’s man but Edmundson just stops playing, letting Parise go. The Blues get some bad luck as the shot goes off Robert Thomas’ stick and then off the iron as Chad Johnson never picked the deflection up. Parise buries the rebound with any contesting since Edmundson let him go.

Inexplicably, coach Mike Yeo keeps that pairing on the ice after the goal. Edmundson again gets lost on the play drifting outside toward the corner rather than turning back to cover the middle of the ice and it’s an easy rebound goal after a good initial first save by Johnson. Edmundson may not have been able to get back in time but he didn’t even give himself a chance when he casually drifted toward the corner/wall.

The Blues got their game back together later in the period, evening the score on a great pass from Jaden Schwartz and a strong shot from Alex Pietrangelo.

The Wild would get the game winning goal a little before eight minutes into the 3rd period. Colton Parayko fails to move the puck out of the slot with the puck going right to Mikael Granlund who beat Johnson with a good shot. Parayko has to make a stronger play with the puck or at least get it to the side boards.


The Blues were unable to beat Devan Dubnyk again even though they had some quality chances.

While most players give standard answers to questions after a game, Ryan O’Reilly’s interview was telling as you could hear the frustration in his voice. O’Reilly said “very disappointing. Frustrating one. We lapsed in the 2nd and responded in the third. There a more veteran team that stuck with it and wait for us to make a mistake. It’s disappointing. We easily could got that into OT and we didn’t.

They clutch and grab a lot…..it’s tough to generate against those guys…It’s frustrating. …..We missed two points there.” The more I see of him and his game, the more I like.

Coach Yeo had similar sentiments. “I thought it was a winnable game. Made the wrong mistakes at the wrong times. Mistakes we’re making obviously are big ones……The mistake is not being firm enough in your play (Parayko)…The chances we give up are unnecessary….goals where our gaps not strong enough, we’re not strong enough or not making a hard enough play or a strong enough play and it ends up in the back of our net.” He talked about how they need to “defend more aggressively” and gave up “too many easy entries”.

According to Yeo, “it comes down to bearing down…. You gotta make plays….bear down and make them….sometimes making the play is just getting the puck out of your zone. Sometimes it’s making a hard play. Sometimes it’s making a more poised play. “

When Yeo was asked about the team heading the right way – “It feels like it but we have to win games. Again this was a winnable game. It was there for us and we didn’t find a way to win the game. We found a way to lose the game.”

How much longer will ownership and management keep on the same path if the wins don’t start coming in bunches?

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.
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