Well,
so much for building in the right direction.
The
St. Louis Blues thought they had things figured out the past three
games, ones in which they were 1-1-1 and conceivably could have won
them all.
And
then Wednesday happened.
Well
…
They
fell off a cliff. And it was a hard fall.
It
was a complete fail in a 6-1
loss to the Washington Capitals at Capital One Arena in Washington,
D.C. on Wednesday.
And
on top of the Blues’ ineffective play in this game that dropped
their record to 4-8-2 overall and 1-5-2 in their past eight games, Alex
Ovechkin scored his 900th
NHL goal becoming the first player in league history to reach the
feat.
Alexey
Toropchenko did score for the Blues, their first shorthanded goal of
the season:
But
it was an inept first two periods that proved costly.
Let’s
look at the game observations:
*
Montgomery wanted a physical lineup – Coming off a 3-2 win against
the Edmonton Oilers, one might have figured the same lineup against
the Capitals, but coach Jim Montgomery inserted Nathan Walker and
Logan Mailloux in for Mathieu Joseph and Matthew
Kessel to provide more nastiness and bite.
Well,
someone forgot to check in at the door that requirements for success
in this game was going to take winning wall battles, loose pucks and
the like.
The
Blues were torched in that department that led to a number of
Capitals goals, including the first one, scored on the power play by
Tom Wilson; not the actual goal itself, but the three-plus minute
shift that lasted in their zone that ended with Colton Parayko, whose
shift was 2:59, took a cross checking penalty (Dylan Holloway’s
shoft lasted 3:01, Dalibor Dvorsky’s was 2:55):
Also
the first of Anthony Beauvillier’s two goals that made it 3-0 at
4:33 of the second period was another case of a lost wall battle that
led to his backhand goal into an empty cage.
And
then there’s John Carlson’s goal that made it 4-0 at 9:28, a shot
from the slot that turned into the Capitals winning another loose
puck and being hungrier for pucks that ended Jordan Binnington’s
night at four goals allowed on 15 shots, including no saves and three
goals allowed in the second period.
And
the greatest example of competing for wall battles was on
Beauvillier’s second of the night at 16:20 that made it 5-0 when
the Blues, this time, were in the offensive zone, puck was in the
corner along the wall, lose that battle and the puck (again), the
Capitals break out with it, make a hand pass that Mailloux either
didn’t see or wasn’t aware of the rule that if he doesn’t touch
the puck in that situation and Beauvillier does, the play is dead.
But he dives, and it was a hustle attempt, touches the puck rendering
it live and Beauvillier beats Joel Hofer from the left circle:
It
was just a microcosm of everything that went wrong from opening puck
drop to that moment. One team came ready to play with an attitude of
wanting to compete, the other didn’t. It’s as simple as that. No compete whatsoever from this group on Wednesday.
*
Despite being pulled, Binnington kept team in it in first period,
slip-up started downward spiral – Binnington was busy in the first
period, not diving from post to post, but with the Blues spending
much of the period in their own end, he came up with some solid saves
stopping 11 of 12 shots and keeping it a 1-0 deficit.
But
on the Ovechkin goal, Binnington got his initial clear into the
corner knocked down by the ‘Great 8’ and the puck doesn’t get
cleared, it winds up back in the corner and Ovechkin blind backhands
the puck from a sharp angle into the net at 2:39 of the second period
to make it 2-0:
It
marked the third time (first for Binnington) a Blues goalie has been
pulled from a game this season through 14 games.
This
game marks the seventh time(!) the Blues have allowed five or more
goals in a game. That didn’t happen until
Game 52 last season.
And on a night in which Binnington tied Mike Liut for most games played by a goalie (347) in franchise history, that's rubbing some salt in the wound.
* The penalty kill is simply not good – Pius Suter was brought in this year to help the Blues' 28th-ranked penalty kill from last season.
I get one player isn't going to be the do-all, tell-all, but the penalty kill at the start of this season is pitiful again.
After Wilson scored nine seconds into Washington's power-play, oh by the way which was 0-for-13 coming into the game, it was the second straight penalty kill the Blues allowed a goal within the first 10 seconds (Edmonton scored eight seconds into theirs) and 11th time in 14 games the Blues' PK has allowed a goal, including the fifth straight game and eighth in nine.
And it was another case of a skater (Wilson) in front of a Blues goalie waiting for a deflection or tip with little or no resistance.
The PK was 74.2 percent last year and is now a woeful 67.6 percent. What's amazing is that there's four teams with worse numbers than the Blues.
*
Was changing the lineup wise? – I get what Montgomery was doing when
he decided to insert Walker and Mailloux into the lineup, some more
physicality on the fourth line and a bigger body on the blue line.
But was it wise?
This
group just came off a solid win with the lineup it had with Joseph
and Kessel in it and deservedly winning for the first time in 16
days. I’m not a coach here, but sticking with that same group would
allow these players to continue to build in the right direction.
It
just looked like it was bad mojo from the outset breaking up a lineup
that really worked well together on Monday, one that kept Connor
McDavid, Leon Draisaitl and Ryan Nugent-Hopkins all without a shot on
goal for the first time in a regular-season game that the trio played
together.
OK,
you make a swap of Walker and Joseph, but in inserting Mailloux, who
Montgomery said pregame didn’t want players sitting for too long,
he started the game with putting veteran Cam Fowler there and putting
Tyler Tucker with Justin Faulk because of the lack of trust in
playing the two guys with the least amount of experience together.
I
actually was caught off-guard by the changes at the morning skate,
just because of the cohesion that the previous game’s lineup had
together.
It’s
easy to second-guess now with such a poor loss, but the result speaks
for itself.
For action-packed issues, access to the entire magazine archive and a free issue, subscribe to The Hockey News at THN.com/free. Get the latest news and trending stories by subscribing to our newsletter here. And share your thoughts by commenting below the article on THN.com or creating your own post in our community forum.
