ST.
LOUIS – Sometimes,
there are greater things in life that a game.
Yes,
the St. Louis Blues lost yet again, and they lost for the second time
in five days to the Nashville Predators, 5-2, at Enterprise Center on
Monday (and we’ll get into it in observations, of course), but on a
night when the Blues honored Hockey Fights Cancer Night and if you
missed Kelly Chase’s speech in the first period, you need to take a
moment to see it, as
it happened right after Blued captain Brayden Schenn and Nashville’s
Nic Hague fought for that purpose alone:
As
for the game itself, the Blues (12-15-7) got goals from Dalibor
Dvorsky, his first multi-goal and multi-point game in the NHL, but it
was a tough night for Joel Hofer, who allowed four goals on 25 shots.
The
Blues lost to the Predators (13-15-4) for the second time in five
days and have been outscored 12-4.
Let’s
look at Monday’s game observations:
*
Kelly Chase is an inspiration – For those that want, or need, to be
versed on what the former Blues enforcer has been dealing with, it’s
acute
myeloid leukemia,
a
form of blood and bone marrow cancer
first diagnosed in 2023, and
the amount of chemotherapy, stints in cancer treatment centers,
hospitals, the whole gamut this man has had to go through, I can’t
even imagine.
So
when he spoke with his doctor, Dr. Ramzi Abboud, former Blues
captains in Garth Butcher and Hall of Famer Bernie Federko, it was
inspiring on this night:
Blues
coach Jim Montgomery was a teammate of Chase’s with the Blues in
1993-94, and he had two positives from this game. One was Dvorsky,
and the other?
“And
then the other real positive was seeing my old teammate Kelly Chase,”
Montgomery
said.
‘When you think about Blues players and why this city and the fans
love Blues players, is because of the fight inside of players like
Kelly Chase. I was incredibly lucky to be and I’m very thankful for
the season I had to play with him where I could learn from someone
that competes like him night in, night out for his teammates and to
see him up there and the message he delivered, I got a little
emotional listening to him, and how can you not because you’ve got
to love the man.”
Schenn,
a fellow Saskatoon native like Chase, would obviously run through a
brick wall if Chase asked him to.
“Kelly’s
been amazing to me, to my family, to my brother, to guys around this
room, to the organization,” Schenn
said. “I really mean it when I say
it: he’s a guy that will literally do anything for anyone, and I
think we all see that. He’s a guy that’s going through a battle
of his own and he’s still trying to raise money and help people
out. He has a mentality and a personality that he would do absolutely
anything for anyone. I’ve learned so much from him, even before
when I was with the Flyers, I knew him way back being a Saskatchewan
guy, he’s taken care of me tremendously from a young age. I owe a
lot to what I’ve learned on and off the ice to Kelly Chase.
I’ve
been to the Gozzer Ranch in the summertime in Idaho where he hangs
out. He knows my parents well, he knows (Schenn’s brother) Luke
well, he’s done fantasy hockey camps and different charity events
in Saskatoon that we’ve attended. This guy, he’ll do absolutely
anything for anyone. He raises a ton of money to help out people and
I’ve heard him say it, it’s true when it comes to hockey players.
He said, ‘Guys are an inch deep and a mile wide,’ with how they
help out, which is true. You do anything you possibly can to help out
everyone, but I think he’s a guy that really digs in and tries to
help people as much as he can and he’s doing it nonstop.”
*
Dvorsky’s glimpse of youth shining – It was another first for
Dvorsky, whose multi-goal and multi-point game was his first.
But
the great sign of maturity is instead of gloating of his
accomplishments on this night in a loss, the No. 10 pick in the 2023
NHL Draft only offered, “Obviously
it feels good to score, but first of all, I’m disappointed that we
lost. That’s the most important is the team win and it’s always
nice, but a win would be better.”
But
Dvorsky’s goals, each was set up well.
The
first tied the game 1-1 at 10:06 of the first period on a setup by
Hugh McGing, who stripped Nashville defenseman Nick Blankenburg of
the puck after a Justin Faulk flip-in, then fed Dvorsky for a high
slot wrister that beat Juuse Saros:
“The
positive is Dalibor Dvorsky, it was nice seeing him moving his feet,
beat a goalie clean with his first goal,” Montgomery
said.
And
on the second, with the game out of hand at the time, Dvorsky
finished off a Jake Neighbours pass at the left post to cut the
Blues’ deficit to 4-2 at 8:29 of the first period:
Dvorsky,
who finished with 17:07 of ice time and three shots on goal, said
it’s the kind of game that can fuel his confidence after coming in
without a point in 11 straight.
“It’s
a step forward for sure,” Dvorsky said. “It boosts my confidence.
I feel like I always try and play with confidence, but the two goals
are good.
“First
of all we need to focus on winning the next game, but it’s always
nice to score. I would never do it without the help of teammates.
Great pass from ‘Ginger’ on the first one, then the whole PP unit
did a great job on the second one, so it’s always about the
teammates.”
*
First shift set the tone – The Blues had their top players on the
ice, the Predators had their top players on.
It’s
essential to begin the game the proper way, and the Blues did not
after Nashville won the opening draw with former Blue Ryan O’Reilly,
getting the puck in deep and the Blues were scrambling.
O’Reilly
collected a puck behind the net and fed Filip Forsberg in a tight
area, and it was the first of three goals for Forsberg when he beat
Hofer high on the short side from a sharp angle 27 seconds in for a
1-0 lead:
“It’s
a great example of not being prepared to start on time,” Montgomery
said.
*
Another poor second period – The Blues came in, no secret to anyone,
porous in the middle 20 minutes, and it didn’t get any better.
They
were outscored 3-0 and fell to a league-worst minus-20 (48-28).
From
chasing pucks to turnovers to getting hemmed in, it was another case
of generating little to nothing on one end to being bombarded at the
other.
“Too
many turnovers, especially at the offensive blue line,” Montgomery
said.
“The old saying, and it’s a Ken Hitchcock saying, ‘play to the
goal line and work and go to work together as a five-man unit, stay
connected.’ If you had that mentality, if you look at our Friday
night’s win against the Hawks (3-2),
our first shift in the second, we won the draw, D-to-D, we gain the
red line and we put it in, and that Schenn line went to work and we
gained momentum off it, and our second period last game was really
good. And it’s starts. You’ve
got to be ready to start that period on time, you’ve got to be
ready to start games on time.”
The
Blues weren’t for a second straight period when once again,
Nashville got a puck in deep, behind the net, and Michael Bunting
wrapped around a puck through Hofer, a shot he should stop at 1:23
to make it 2-1 and give the Predators the lead for good:
Dvorsky’s
ill-advised flip of a puck into the crowd from his own zone was the
result of playing the puck too slowly, and three Predators converged
on him, causing a delay of game minor and one that Forsberg scored
his second of the game on at 5:31 to make it 3-1, a wrister from the
high slot:
And
to cap things off, Hofer gave up a really bad one to Reid Schaefer at
18:45 to make it 4-1, a shot from near the blue line where the
forward just spun and whirled the puck to the net that Hofer just
missed:
“Obviously
it’s something we’ve got to focus on and make sure we dive into,”
Blues
defenseman Colton Parayko said of second periods.
‘We’ve got to be better and I’m confident we will. We’ve got
a strong group in here. It’s something we can obviously learn from
and moving forward try to get better in the second.”
*
Getting beat to pucks, looking slow – The Predators were hungrier,
faster to pucks throughout, and the result was much the same as other
losses this season.
When
Forsberg added an empty-netter at 16:09 of the third period to make
it 5-2, it marked the 12th time this season already – it only
happened nine times all of last season – the Blues were beat by
three goals or more.
Their
goal differential is minus-37, which is far and beyond the worst in
the NHL (Vancouver Canucks next at minus-23) and the 123 goals
allowed is nine more than the next worst team, the Edmonton Oilers at
114.
“Yeah,
they were the better team,” Montgomery
said of the Predators.
“They were more connected, they supported each other. We always
talk about puck support and winning goal lines and net fronts and
second quicks is a term we use as well. Unfortunately we didn’t
meet the tasks tonight in those areas.”
*
Injuries no excuse – The Blues won’t use the injury bug as an
excuse. They are missing Dylan Holloway (high ankle sprain), Jordan
Kyrou (lower-body injury), Jimmy Snuggerud (wrist), Nathan Walker
(upper body) and Nick Bjugstad (upper body).
They’ve
had to call up McGing, who has two points in three games, Matt Luff,
who scored against the Chicago Blackhawks, and now they’re bringing
up Otto Stenberg, the 25th pick in 2023.
“Obviously
a lot of injuries and that’s the nature of the game,” Parayko
said.
“There’s probably every team with almost some injuries. For us,
it’s a mindset. We’ve got to come together and whoever’s
playing that night is ready. That’s the biggest thing. You’ve got
to be prepared. It’s next-man-up. We have great players in our
locker room. Every night no matter who’s injured, guys are stepping
up and a lot of guys are playing extremely well. As a group
collectively, we’ve just got to support each other, just get the
job done.”
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