A chance to get back to .500 for the first time since the seventh game of the season, the St. Louis Blues once again present a display that is an all too familiar theme this season.
Coherence is for them inconsistency, and this has once again shown itself against Tampa Bay Lightning Monday despite a recent streak of better play.
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The Lightning scored on the first shift of the game and were never threatened despite only having 17 shots on goal in a rather easy 4-1 victory over the Blues at Benchmark International Arena in Tampa, Florida.
Justin Faulk scored the Blues’ lone goal and Jordan Binnington, although he didn’t do much work, was the victim of three deflected goals in the game as the Blues, who beat the Florida Panthers 6-2 to open the two-game series, now heading into the Christmas break with a record of 14-16-8 after completing a streak of 11 games in 19 days; the Lightning are 20-13-3.
Let’s move on to observations of the game:
* Another bad first shift to open a game – I’m not even going to go over the 38 games played by the Blues, because there were several occasions where they allowed a goal either in the first minute of a period or in the last minute.
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That’s part of the reason this team’s record is what it is, but that happened exactly a week ago Monday, and it was once again the first line on the ice that wasn’t locked in and wasn’t ready to start a game.
It was the Nashville Predators who scored 27 seconds into what would be a 5-2 loss, and on Monday it was the Lightning who scored 21 seconds later to take a 1-0 lead, a Pontus Holmberg deflection, and once again, it’s the opposition coming in and the Blues not outplaying them to get out of the zone.
With a puck behind the net, the puck is brought back to the right point along the wall, which Darren Raddysh does just enough to keep it alive in the zone, and Cam Fowler follows Holmberg to the slot zone, but instead of putting a body on him or attaching his stick, he raises his stick enough that Holmberg is able to redirect the puck past Binnington, who is going from his left to his right, and in:
The Lightning came out right away and had each other’s backs in the first shift and it was a precursor to what was to come for 60 minutes in this game.
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*A missed zone exit essentially ended the game – With a goal difference, the Blues had life. When it was 2-0, it felt like the next goal would be the one that would determine whether it would be a match or a rout.
When Faulk scored, it made it a game. Now we really need to refine the details.
But that’s exactly what didn’t happen when Logan Mailloux’s puck transitioned through Pavel Buchnevich for a turnover. Raddysh turned it into a quick shot toward the goal that was tipped and tipped in by Anthony Cirelli at 8:01 of the second, or 1:18 after Faulk scored, to wipe out the momentum built and cut Tampa’s lead to two at 3-1:
It’s just an error that can’t happen here. And it was an outlet Buchnevich couldn’t handle. It was right there, and he didn’t handle it cleanly and a few seconds later it’s 3-1.
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But quite simply, good teams make this simple play. End of story. These simple mistakes have happened far too often this season, and the way the Lightning were playing, it was going to be difficult trying to overcome a second two-goal deficit.
*Faulk’s goal should have been the crucial goal to make it a game – The defenseman’s 10th goal tied the team up following a nice run down the left side by Tyler Tucker, who fed Otto Stenberg for a quick shot that Andrei Vasilevskiy stopped, but Tucker collected the loose puck and fed Faulk for a one-timer from the blue line at 6:43 of the second to make it 2-1:
The Blues came out with more juice in the second half and it showed with the momentum they thought they had, until the defensive zone blunder that quickly wiped out that momentum.
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* Too many penalties/slipping penalties – Falling behind 2-0, the Blues were up three in the first period, and Mailloux’s penalty lead led to Raddysh’s goal that flew off Faulk’s shin at 9:12:
But the problem was that the Blues goal killers just weren’t getting the puck back. Tampa managed to recover shot attempts six (!) times and eventually the tired, weary legs would give way and when the puck went to Raddysh in the slot between the tops of the circles, his one-timer looked to be going away but sank into Faulk.
They would give up a second goal in the third period to Oliver Bjorkstrand at 5:36, making the score 4-1 following a bad decision by Mailloux for holding, but the PK has not allowed four goals in the last three games and six in the last six.
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And think about it, it could have been worse in the first if Binnington hadn’t robbed Declan Carlisle at 4:15 with an absolutely wide open net at that point:
That’s what I say about Binnington, he didn’t see a lot of work, but the shots he saw were Grade A shots or deflections due to the Tamps bringing bodies to the net.
* When will the power play just shoot pucks? – The Blues finished 19th in power play, which isn’t great but also isn’t in the top half of the league.
They went 0-for-2 for the game and are now 2-for-19 in the last seven games. And a big culprit, the lack of shooters on each unit. It seems like the players on the ice want to pass pucks instead of directing them to the net and just being selfish and just throwing a shot.
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The Blues averaged just over two shot attempts per power play and managed just two shots on goal on two occasions. Once again, this is not enough.
* The Blues won’t be off for four days before playing again Saturday, the start of four of five games at home against the Predators for the third time this month.
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