ST.
LOUIS – Another
one that got away.
How
many times have we said that about the St. Louis Blues this season?
This
time, it came in the form of a pair of two-goal leads.
The
Blues got a point, but it felt like losing another one despite
getting a big offensive night,
only to lose 6-5 in a shootout against the Philadelphia Flyers at
Enterprise Center on Friday.
Robert
Thomas, Jimmy Snuggerud and Jordan Kyrou each had a goal and an
assist, while Jordan Binnington made 26 saves. But the Blues blew two
two-goal leads, 3-1 in the second period and 5-3 in the third period
to fall to 6-8-4 (16 points) and a date with the Vegas Golden
Knights.
Let’s
look at Friday’s game observations:
*
Blowing a pair of two-goal leads – The Blues had this game in hand
multiple times.
They
had a goalie (Sam Ersson) on the ropes, allowing five goals on 17
shots (.706 save percentage).
When
they took command with a 3-1 lead on goals by Snuggerud at 9:42 of
the first period, then Justin Faulk at 6:54 of the second period (on a Cam Fowler assist, his 500th NHL point),
that’s when the mistakes started:
The
response wasn’t good.
Cam
Fowler, who had two assists in the game and reached 500 points in the
NHL, lost coverage at the net when Christian Dvorak popped in and
backhanded in a rebound 23 seconds after the Faulk goal, it’s a
one-goal game again:
And
when Trevor Zegras was parked at the net front and tied the game at
18:24, it opened got the Flyers back on level ground, and it came
after Pavel Buchnevich (we’ll get to him later) missed a great
chance to make it a 4-2 game moments earlier, then Colton Parayko was
beaten to the wall by Owen Tippett as the puck was then at the blue
line, and a shot got to the net for the tip past Binnington:
But
the Blues regained the advantage in the third period, when coach Jim
Montgomery moved Brayden Schenn back between Dylan Holloway and
Kyrou, a line that carried the Blues on their shoulders in the second
half of last season, and Holloway’s third in three games made it
4-3 just 40 seconds into the final period:
And
when Thomas scored on a one-timer from the slot, off a pretty feed
from Snuggerud, at 4:56 of the third, the Blues were up 5-3 and
should have had that game under control:
But
again, they didn’t.
Dvorak
scored at 7:53 to make it 5-4 after Matthew Kessel slipped to the ice
trying to turn and move up with the puck, creating a turnover and
shot from the slot:
And
when Tippett tied it 5-5 at 10:27, it marked a plethora of errors,
including at the end, Mathieu Joseph vacating the high slot where
Tippett was, and ultimately, three Blues wound up screening
Binnington on the shot:
“Quite
high to be honest,” Montgomery
said when asked of the level of disappointment and frustration
blowing two two-goal leads.
“I didn’t like that we gave up the first two-goal lead. Those
were some net front miscues and then the last two goals were guys not
owning their quadrants or turnovers. Regardless, we scored five
goals. You’ve got to win that game. There’s got to be more
desperation in us.”
*
All possession in OT, no shots at the net – The Blues, unlike their
4-3 loss to the Seattle Kraken last Saturday in overtime, had
majority of the puck in the extra session, but they cycled it out on
multiple occasions and really never generated the kind of chances
that would quantify winning.
They
had a couple looks, and Fowler had one great opportunity from the
inner edge of the left circle that was stopped, and Snuggerud had a
puck roll off his stick with some pressure from behind cutting to the
net from the left side.
“There’s
a lot of speed. It’s a fast game,” Snuggerud
said.
“I thought we had good chances and in overtime.”
What
has to be most peculiar is that even with all the possession, how do
the Blues allow the Flyers to make TWO changes to get fresh guys on
the ice when they have possession?
That
was a big issue and can’t happen.
Players
failing to recognize the odd-man chance when players are changing was
puzzling.
“We’ve
had a lot of success. Coach (Steve)
Ott
has done a real good job and it’s worked a lot in past years of
building, taking it back out of you don’t like your entry,”
Montgomery
said.
‘I think we were a little impatient. I think we could have hit the
last time Thomas got it. I forget who had the puck, they stopped,
they hit him coming late and that led to a good opportunity. I think
it was 21’s opportunity when he skated in, which I thought were in
on the hands or he might have scored. But we’re not having the same
purpose of attacking inside the dots.
“We
don’t put teams on their heels in those situations. Twice they
changed, and the guy with the puck didn’t see it and he didn’t
bypass them so we could have a 3-on-2. I think that was the bigger
mistake that we made, the natural execution on the 3-on-3. They
changed when we took it out and we let them change. It was still
3-on-3. You’ve got to see it, you’ve got to go.”
“We
didn’t do a good enough job keeping them in three-quarter,”
Thomas
said.
“We let them change twice even though we had the possession. We’ve
got to be a lot smarter there (and) set up the next guys. If you have
the puck, they should never be able to change. Your guys should be
able to change at least once, maybe even twice, get them tired and
take advantage of it.”
And
despite the difference in possession in OT, the Flyers somehow still
managed to outshoot the Blues 6-1.
*
Top
guys produced – The Blues need their top end players to make plays,
and to score.
They
got seven points (four goals, three assists) from Thomas, Kyrou,
Snuggerud and Holloway. They generated enough, despite the low volume
of shots on goal (47 attempts), from their top end guys.
Kyrou
made a savvy read picking off a Zegras pass in the neutral zone and
darting in along the right side before beating Ersson from the right
dot for a 1-0 lead at 1:19 of the opening period:
“Yeah,
but at the end of the day, you need everyone to win,” Snuggerud
said.
“Not saying we were top heavy or bottom heavy today. Everyone in
the lineup needs to be at their best if we want to win games. I
thought we had chances as every line. We just have to bear down at
the end of the game.
“…
As
the games go on, more and more games, I feel like you build more and
more chemistry. As a team, I feel like that’s what we’re really
most worried about right now keeping our energy up throughout the
whole game and bearing down and finishing with a win.
“…
Any
time you score five goals in a game you should be happy because we
were creating offense, but on the flip side defensively, I feel like
you don’t want to give up that much as well. It’s living and
learning and we have to keep moving forward.”
“Yeah,
we had some chances,” Thomas
said.
“We’ve still go to get better.”
*
Blues
blowing points in OT, SO – Four games, four losses for the Blues in
overtime and the shootout.
That’s
four points banked, but the potential of an extra point left on the
table in those four games.
“Those
are big extra points,” Thomas
said.
‘We’ve got to find a way to get those done, especially in
overtime. We’ve got to bear down and get those in the net and if it
comes to shootout, we have our spots, we have our stuff we need to
do. We just didn’t hit them there.”
*
Buchnevich
turnover, ensuing penalty shot – Pavel Buchnevich nearly cost the
Blues the extra point in overtime after losing a puck, turning it
over that would have resulted in a Zegras breakaway. But the Blues
forward was able to trip Zegras from behind at 2:51 of OT, awarding
the Flyers forward a penalty shot.
Binnington
would make the save when Zegras tried beating him five-hole. It
prolonged the game, but it came after another lengthy possession for
the Blues.
“I
think he had to,” Montgomery
said of Buchnevich.
“It’s the same situation that would occur, but usually when a
forward doesn’t have too much time to think, he’s going to trust
his instincts. You understand why he did it. To me, the turnover’s
the issue. Not what happens next.”
Also
an issue, Buchnevich is not producing offensively at all. Nothing.
He
was a plus-1 but had just one shot on goal and two missed nets in
18:40. It’s the 11th
time in 18 games Buchnevich has produced zero points.
*
Skinner’s debut – Defenseman Hunter Skinner got the traditional
rookie lap at the start of warmups, a dream-come-true playing in his
first NHL game:
And
it wasn’t a knock-your-socks-off game for the 24-year-old, but he
managed his ice time (10:45) well with four hits and was a plus-1 in
the game.
“I
thought he was aggressive,” Montgomery
said.
‘He was fine, but my brain’s more on how we give up two two-goal
leads.”
*
Dvorak
line torched Blues – Dvorak (two goals, one assist), Tippett (one
goal, three assists) and Zegras (two goals, one assist, shootout
winner) combined for 10 points in the game and were all the offense
the Flyers needed.
They
were allowed to have their way throughout the game, and it wasn’t
even the line that Montgomery said the Blues focused on as much
because he was playing Thomas’ line against the line of Matvei
Michkov, Sean Couturier and Travis Konecny.
“For
whatever reason, their second line gave us fits,” Montgomery
said.
“I was matching Thomas against Couturier’s line. That’s their
top line. And their second line gave us fits defensively.”
*
Schenn rejoins familiar linemates – At the start of the third,
Montgomery reunited Brayden Schenn with Holloway and Kyrou, and it
paid dividends.
It
set the tone for what the Blues were hoping would be a win when Kyrou
set up Holloway for a left-circle shot to give the Blues a 4-3 lead
just 40 seconds into the final period:
“Yeah,
and it paid off with that fourth goal,” Montgomery
said.
“Sometimes
you’re going to have games where you’re not on. I thought Schenn
was skating so I moved him up and I dropped (Dalibor)
Dvorsky
back on the third line at left wing.”
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