As most of you all know, the Blackhawks bested the Blues 3-2 on Friday night in a hotly contested game in more ways than one. A video recap of the game can be seen
here. My last piece wasn’t done to debate a specific call in the game, nor will this one. Frankly, my opinion, your opinion, Hitchcock’s opinion, Q’s opinion or anyone else for that matter other than the NHL review team in Toronto and the referees and linesmen in the game doesn’t matter. Just like any call in a game whether icing or not, penalty or not, etc. only those who actually get to make the decision matter as their opinion becomes actual result. What matters is how you respond to their decisions. In game 2, one team responded better than the other and they won. I’ve said it a lot and I’ll say it again modified. Great teams win in spite of adversity. They don’t make excuses and find ways to win regardless of the circumstances. A couple of Hitchcock’s quotes seem on point to me when he said "we played a very good hockey game and we lost. The calls didn't go our way... We're going to have to fight through that stuff" and “we're upset, but we can't let it get in the way of what we're going to have to do." Unfortunately a lot of his other comments seemed like back handed shots at the officials for giving the Hawks calls which was disappointing. I know the coaches try and “work” the referees but I’m not a fan of doing it in this manner.
As a long time official of a different sport, as a captain of certain teams and as a player of others, I’ve always found it more effective to have narrow, calm, rationale discussions with them. It won’t change that call but it does help going forward. Sometimes you can nicely suggest how the angle they were at wouldn’t have allowed them to see this aspect of the play that you could see from where you were. You can suggest things that they might be on the lookout for later in the game. You might just try and understand how they saw the play and share how you saw it, even saying something like I can see why you would see the play that way but I think if you consider this it might change your perspective. Some of this is very hard to do in the heat of the moment but calling them out publicly, trying to show them up, a condescending or lunatic tone, etc. generally isn’t very effective in my experience. Anyway, let’s look at how the Blues performed relative to some of Jammer’s Blues Keys.
Exposing and taking advantage of the Hawks bottom D Pairings
The Blues were partially successful on this key as the bottom 3 defensemen were a combined -3 in a combined 41 minutes (yes the top 3 play 2/3 of the game). They scored their first goal against Michal Rozsival and Trevor van Riemsdyk. TVR was also on the ice for the second goal. Brent Seabrook was on the ice for the disallowed goal and the last goal while Duncan Keith was only on the ice for the disallowed goal. The difficulty in taking full advantage of this is that Rozsival and Viktor Svedberg played less than 20 minutes combined. The suspension time for Keith may be a big disadvantage for the Blues if the time off helped him stay fresh so that he can continue to play 31 minutes a night at a high level.
Timely Goaltending
The Blues got solid goaltending from Brian Elliott. My prediction of “I expect the Blackhawks to try and create more traffic and to try and get more secondary opportunities” proved to be prophetic. Both goals were a result of more traffic and one was from secondary opportunities.
Injuries
Interestingly to me, some of the players that seemed really nicked up in game 1 seemed to be playing a lot closer to 100%. David Backes and Andrew Shaw in particular seemed more like their regular selves.
Rookies
Much like game 1, the rookies didn’t shy away from the stage and tried to elevate their play to match the situation. I though Robby Fabbri had a strong game and reduced his costly turnovers. While his embellishment call was very weak, he could have been called for the stick work he laid before Ladd’s crosscheck. I believe Ladd’s crosscheck was the response to Fabbri’s stick work. Also like game 1, Colton Parayko played reasonably well except for one more noticeable mistake. In game 1, it was the delay of game penalty. In game 2, it was him not blocking Duncan Keith’s first goal and worse yet, screening Brian Elliott on the play. I think the Blues have to be pleased so far with the play of those two as they have played well and their mistakes have been very limited, especially given both have very little pro experience (not just NHL). Joel Edmundson took two penalties, one that led to a Chicago power play and played 11:31.
Other notes
- When will Hitchcok have David Backes take the faceoffs instead of Steen? Steen has been 29% and 14% in the first two games. Well at least he doubled his percentage from game 1.
- Who will we see in the lineup today? I think you will see Ott or Paajarvi in for Reaves.
- NHL.com had the 3 stars of Friday’s game as Crawford, Tarasenko and Kane. Huh? Kane over Keith? What game were they watching?
- Both teams have been taking a lot of liberties and spending time on the penalty side of the line without getting calls against. This series has been filled with a lot of infractions that have not been called, something I think we all expected at least to some degree.
More quotes
Hitchcock: “We’re going to have to decide how deep we’re willing to dig, and I think our group is willing to go further.”
Stastny: "We know we’re going to have to weather that storm, be ourselves and stick together and play as a team.”
Reporter: "The intent of the rule everybody thought was to catch offsides by a couple of feet. Did you ever see it going to looking at millimeters?: Hitchcock: "No. I'm sure there will be lots of discussion and that will be a video that gets played over and over again but for right now all I know is the call that went against us and we need to move on and get ready for tomorrow afternoon. Like I said we didn't have a lot of guys skate today and we going to have to really be ready because on a 2 o'clock it's a short turn around here."
Hitchcock: "I think both teams are looking and saying their both playing awful well. It's who can keep up to the pace. I'm not sure the pace is gonna go up but if you can maintain the pace of the first two games you're probably going to have more success so our job is to maintain the pace and see if we can improve it in little increments but I'm thinking both teams know this is an awfully high pace and both of us are probably going to want to keep up to it. "
Hitchcock: "Both teams have dialed it up significantly since game 68 and 81 that we played these are completely different games. These are at a whole other level and both teams recognize that and both teams are full."
Hitchcock: "Hopefully we are one of the teams that's improving as the series goes on and not leveling out because it's the little bit that's gonna make a difference for one of these teams because like I said it's at a very high level now and probably not going to change."
On the rookies - Hitchcock: "They've been ok. They've handled themselves. There's a few times their hanging on the ledge a little bit but they've been ok [affirmative head nod while saying]. They've held their own so far."
It’s a great day for hockey.
St Louis Blues Blogger • 
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