The Blues played a much more complete game on Thursday, beating the Avalanche 4-1 to bring the series even at one game each. At times, the Blues’ gap closures were too weak and slow for my taste but the adjustments, like more neutral zone containment were evident and effective. When playing a team like the Avalanche, you have to be smart on the forecheck, knowing when to back off and contain and when to aggressively pressure. The Blues were much better at executing this in game two.
Even with the improved play, the Blues benefitted from an extra lucky bounces and what most would consider a weak goal. The first lucky bounce comes when Jordan Kyrou’s shot deflects off Sam Girard’s stick and by Darcy Kuemper. Shots like this are very difficult for a goalie as they can’t read the release and the puck doesn’t follow a normal flight trajectory.
Kyrou scores off Girard's stick
The Blues took the lead on a five forward, five on three power play goal from David Perron. Perron’s one-timer deflects off the stick blade of Josh Manson, changing direction and becoming much more difficult for Kuemper to track.
Perron's shot goes off Manson's stick and in
The Avalanche would cut the lead in half less than two minutes into the third period with a Gabriel Landeskog power play goal, thanks to a fortuitous bounce off of Justin Faulk’s skate. Landeskog’s pass goes off Faulk and back to himself, leaving an easy shot past Binnington who already was moving with the pass.
Landeskog PPG
The Blues re-established their two goal lead on Perron’s second goal of the game. A few times during the game, it appeared that Kuemper was having some trouble catching pucks. This would prove costly on Perron’s goal, a save-able shot that has to be made at this point of the game.
Perron's shot goes in off Kuemper glove
Brandon Saad would add an empty netter for a 4-1 final. Jordan Binnington was strong again. The Blues improved mightily in the face-off circle, winning 61% of the draws.
As I mentioned the other day, I expect this series to go six or seven games. A lot of people were misreading last year’s sweep. For a quick review, the Blues were without their leading scorer for the entire series and their best defenseman for over half the series as David Perron was in Covid protocol and Justin Faulk was injured by Nazem Kadri. The Avalanche’s power play was en fuego last year, converting at a 50% rate. Perhaps most importantly, the Blues got sub-par goaltending.
Even with all of that, the Blues were tied in the third period of game one, within one goal with less than five minutes left in game two, and within one goal in game four with less than twelve minutes left. In game three, the Blues outplayed the Avalanche but their goaltending let them down. The sweep doesn’t tell the whole story.
I expect the Blues to go with seven defensemen today, especially with Calle Rosen still finding his game in the second round. He played better in game two but has not performed as well as he did late in the series against the Wild.
Jammer’s five keys to tonight’s game are 1) getting Vladimir Tarasenko engaged and Pavel Buchnevich’s goal monkey off his back, 2) continued strong goaltending from Binnington, 3) continued discipline on the penalty front, 4) limiting the group of Nathan MacKinnon, Mikko Rantanen, Landeskog, and Cale Makar to two goals or less, and 5) winning the special teams game.
It’s a great day for hockey.
St Louis Blues Blogger • 
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