Things were going like they intended it for the St. Louis Blues in Game 1 of the Western Conference First Round on Saturday.
Their special teams were strong, they started the game hitting everything that moved, with a whopping 32 in the first period, and their special teams helped them carry a lead into the final 20 minutes.
But the Blues succumbed in a big way. The Winnipeg Jets scored three times, including Kyle Connor's one-timer with 1:36 remaining to rally for a 5-3 win against the Blues at Canada Life Centre.
The Blues, who trail the best-of-7 series 1-0 with Game 2 on Monday at 6:30 p.m., were 35-2-1 in the regular season when leading after two periods. It was almost automatic they would have the capability to close out a game but couldn't on Saturday.
Robert Thomas and Jordan Kyrou scored power-play goals, Oskar Sundqvist scored and Jordan Binnington made 21 saves.
Let's look at Saturday's Three Takeaways:
* Horrendous third period -- The Blues are usually good at locking down the third, and coach Jim Montgomery has praised the players for their abilities to do so since the 4 Nations Face-Off break.
Whatever that was on Saturday, this will be a quick series if that same blueprint and way of execution is in play.
Instead of managing the game, the Blues played prevent defense for seemingly 20 minutes, sat back, didn't dictate any play and had just one shot on goal until a meaningless Mathieu Joseph shot on Connor Hellebuyck with seconds remaining.
They had a chance to put a stranglehold on the game with a power play after killing off a Nick Leddy minor to begin the period but Zack Bolduc took an inexplicably bad cross checking minor to negate what was left of it and it seemed the Jets, even through they didn't score on the ensuing power play of their own, fed off the momentum.
"We can’t take that penalty in the playoffs, I do know that," Montgomery said." I thought we killed the penalty pretty good. I can’t say it built momentum for them, but it took us from a situation where I thought we were a little bit in control and then we weren’t."
The Blues managed things until Alex Iafallo tied the game 3-3 when Scheifele took a puck around the net, and was defended well by Thomas, but Cam Fowler jumped into try and defend as well, leaving that side of the ice open. Scheifele's pass hit the side of the net right to an open Iafallo, who deposited a lot shot beyond Binnington's right pad.
The Blues didn't generate any offense because their play with the puck was poor at best. They couldn't string together, forget two passes, they couldn't put one pass together. They kept giving it back in the neutral zone, then had to defend much of the period, getting hemmed in and when they would get it, would give it right back. Then they iced a number of pucks, including Kyrou late that started the sequence that led to Connor's eventual game-winner. Connor had been robbed twice in the game earlier by Binnington.
After Scheifele won the face-off from Thomas, who was 11-for-15, the puck came to the point, Josh Morrissey found Scheifele curling around the net along the left side, a pass to the low circle to Connor for a one-timer and it was 4-3. Adam Lowry iced it with an empty-netter to make it 5-3 at 19:07.
It was simply a terrible period for the Blues, one of their worst third periods all season and came at an inopportune time.
"I didn’t think we managed the game very well in the third period," Montgomery said. "Penalties. Puck management. A little bit of our emotions.
"... I didn’t think our puck management and decision-making was quick enough."
* Need more from Schenn line offensively -- Brayden Schenn will never be questioned for his physical nature; the Blues captain had a game-high nine hits of the Blues' 53 in the game. But with a line of Schenn, Kyrou and Jimmy Snuggerud, that line had a Corsi-for/Corsi-against of 0-11 in the game.
The Blues will not play beyond Game 4 if they don't get supportive scoring from someone other than the Thomas, Pavel Buchnevich, Jake Neighbours line. Even the fourth line of Radek Faksa, Alexey Toropchenko and Nathan Walker had a Corsi rating of 3-13.
No offense to Snuggerud, playing his first playoff game and eighth NHL game overall, but Saturday was a prime example of the Blues missing Dylan Holloway, who is a big influence in driving that line.
* Special teams did its job -- You can't go wrong when your power-play gets you two goals, like the Blues' did.
And quite frankly, if it wasn't for a lucky bounce off Ryan Suter's stick that gave Scheifele a gift power-play goal himself, the Blues' penalty killers would have been 4-for-4.
But one way to quiet a home crowd as a visiting player is to make the opposition pay with the man advantage.
Thomas made it 1-0 at 9:31 of the first when Cam Fowler kept a puck alive at the point, the second time on a backhand to Thomas, who made no mistake beating Hellebuyck with a wrister high glove.
And after Sundqvist tied it 2-2 with the Blues' only even strength goal at 18:10, Kyrou gave the Blues a 3-2 lead at 1:13 of the second period after a puck was worked around from left to the point to Kyrou, who had acres, it seemed, to skate into a wrister of his own and beat Hellebuyck high blocker (sense a theme here?).
The Blues finished 2-for-3 with the man advantage and 3-for-4 on the penalty kill, and on most nights, you're winning those hockey games, playoffs or not. Not this night though.
"I think our special teams, ever since 4 Nations, it's been really good," Sundqvist said. "We just keep working on it. And, it's good to get some goals on the power play and killing some penalties off and then we just get back to work tomorrow and see what we need to do 5-on-5."
* Here's what else Montgomery and players said postgame:
