ST.
LOUIS – It’s only one game, right?
That’s
the message coming from the St. Louis Blues locker room after a
disheartening 5-0 loss to the Minnesota Wild in the season-opener for
both teams at Enterprise Center on Thursday.
The
Blues delivered a stinker of a result after lots of preseason hype of
building off of how the team finished in the second half of last
season and into the playoffs before falling to the Winnipeg Jets in
seven games in the first round.
Minnesota’s
top line of Matt Boldy, Marco Rossi and Kirill Kaprizov, who on Sept.
30 signed the richest contract in NHL history (eight years, $136
million; $17 million average annual value), combined for eight points
(two goals, six assists) and Filip Gustavsson stopped all 26 shots
the Blues threw at him, including the first 14 in the second period.
Jordan
Binnington did not have a good night, allowing five goals on 21
shots.
Here
are tonight’s observations:
*
This game was decided at the net front – Blues coach Jim Montgomery
hit the nail on the head when he talked about the net front presence
at both ends of the ice.
The
Wild were on top of it from their end; the Blues were not.
Four
of five Minnesota goals came as a result of being at the net, whether
it be a rebound, a loose puck or just being in the right place at the
right time.
“I
think our habits, special teams, our battle level on 1-on-1 battles
wasn’t at the level that we expect,” Montgomery said. “And then
I think the biggest difference was the battle at the net front.
There’s a process that we believe in and a lot of those details and
habits within our process cost us tonight.”
Ryan
Hartman, who scored twice, scored the first goal after getting a puck
by Dylan Holloway’s stick check, then being at the net after Logan
Mailloux, making his Blues debut, couldn’t get enough of the puck
sliding trying to sweep it away at 15:54 of the first period:
Then
Boldy was parked in front of Binnington and to redirect a Kaprizov
pass off the boards at 17:30 of the first for a 2-0 Wild lead, which
was a defensive breakdown and missed assignment of another guy in
tight:
Minnesota’s
third goal, a power-play marker scored by Joel Eriksson Ek, at 12:27
of the second made it 3-0 and came on the Wild’s first shot of the
period after the Blues put up the first 14. But it was another case
of funneling a puck to the net and Eriksson Ek being in the right
place in tight:
And
on Rossi’s goal that made it 5-0 at 7:27 of the third period,
another case of funneling a puck to the net and driving the goal to
collect the rebound in the crease:
“I
thought through the first two (periods) we did some good things and
there's some things that we need to clean up,” Blues captain
Brayden Schenn said. “… Defensively, got to work on closing plays
a little bit faster. We did some good things tonight, but there's a
whole lot we can clean up and grow and get better.”
At
the other end, Gustavsson was seeing the puck because the Blues just
simply didn’t get enough bodies to the net. The goalie’s eyes
were clear as day at that end of the ice far too often throughout the
game.
“Offensively
we've got to get harder in front of the opposition's goalie, that's
for sure,” Schenn said. “Nothing against them, but I think we
just weren't hard enough there ... willingness to go there and make
it hard on Gustavsson. We had some looks, but they weren't second and
third opportunities and chaos around the net. That's obviously
something we've got to focus on here moving onto the next game.”
*
Logan Mailloux had a rough first Blues game – Needless to say, it
wasn’t the greatest of debuts for Mailloux, playing his first game
after being acquired from the Montreal Canadiens on July 1 for Zack
Bolduc. He played 14:12 and was a minus-2 in the game.
The
22-year-old looked jittery when the puck was near him, fumbling it,
not playing it cleanly throughout the game. The first Hartman goal
started as a result of Mailloux misfiring a batted puck out of the
zone that led to the sequence for the goal in which he tried to atone
himself with a sliding play but not getting enough of the puck.
The
Rossi goal also started with a defensive play in which Mailloux’s
pass to partner Tyler Tucker was off the mark.
This
is a process, and there are going to be nights where it doesn’t go
right and the teaching moments will be there. You have to remember,
this was Mailloux’s ninth NHL game, and there’s a long-term plan
here, and judging someone’s play by just one game.
It
wasn’t the kind of game Mailloux had hoped or envisioned, but there
are certainly some teaching moments, that’s for sure.
*
Blues shot selection was not good enough when game could have changed
at start of second period – The Blues came out in the second period
with a purpose. And that purpose was to try and re-grab the game.
They
had a firm grip on it until the two goals late in the first by the
Wild. They grabbed it back by pumping the first 14 shots on goal in
the second period and having a 22-7 edge on the shot clock.
Unfortunately,
the shot selection was not the idea to aim at the Wild logo, which
the Blues were adept at doing. If that was the case, they win this
game running away. But it also goes hand in hand with not taking the
goalie’s eyes away.
“Well
one, we weren’t taking away his eyes, so even if you are shooting
at the logo, which you are correct,” Montgomery said. “A lot hit
the whatever animal that is. And I don’t have an answer. We have a
lot of good players that score a lot of goals and for whatever
reason, we weren’t on our mark tonight.”
*
Team play dipped – When the Blues were up 14-0 in shots in the
second period, they had the territorial edge. But an untimely Schenn
hooking penalty halted the momentum and 15 seconds later, Eriksson Ek
made it 3-0 and instead of sticking with the process, the team’s
play sagged instead.
There
was no cohesion, little urgency and the effort level as the game wore
on dipped.
And
it reflected onto Binnington, who allowed a poor fourth goal to
Hartman, who made a veteran move count by locking up Colton Parayko’s
stick with his legs that was not called leading up to it:
“It’s
a long season. It’s a journey, it’s a grind,” Montgomery said.
“You’re going to have nights where unfortunately the score ends
up like tonight at times. I did think for the first two periods,
until it went 3-0, I liked our game quite a bit. The execution of
special teams and being at the net front I think is why they
separated from us. I didn’t like our game after that. Once it went
3-0, I didn’t like the energy on our bench, I didn’t like the
energy that we had on the ice and the game kind of got away from us
in the third.”
*
Boobirds already? – The pregame hype was one thing. But that tone
changed at the end of the second period when some boobirds could be
heard, then they grew a bit louder at game’s end.
For
Game 1 of 82, that’s way too soon.
“You
obviously want to win the home opener in front of your fans,”
Schenn said. “You know what, it's a long season. We can't dwell on
one game. We have to turn the page and the best part about it is we
have a game in a day and a half. We can go right back at it and make
some adjustments and we know we can be better.”
