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While the Blues extended their home point streak to 12 games with their overtime loss to the Jets on Saturday, I don’t expect the coaching staff was very pleased with the team’s performance and coach Ken Hitchcock’s press conference confirmed most of my thoughts regarding the game.
He commented that “we want to play a different way. I don’t know if we thought the opponent was something different than they were but we certainly didn’t want to play the way we have or the way we’re supposed to. [We] played slow, east – west, not skating.” He went on to elaborate that “we didn’t want to play the game we had to play out there against them so they looked faster than we did.”
He talked about how they weren’t engage and moving their feet how they “wanted to play the game flat footed and sideways and slow it down.” He astutely observed that “the power play was a reflection of our whole game, slow, methodical, unaware.”
Of course, not all was bad as he singled out Patrik Berglund and Dmitrij Jaskin as two players who played well and that the team was “fortunate to get a point”.
I thought it was interesting that he observed that “I think it’s a build up from being here too long. We look like a distracted team again. We look like a team that’s won a lot of hockey games and wanted things to be a little bit easier and you get that sometimes.”
I think the team likely threw out the film for Saturday and went back to basics to prepare for tonght’s game against the Montreal Canadiens. Unlike how the Blues were not able to take advantage of the Jets not having Scheifele, Blues fans hope that the Blues will be able to take advantage of the Canadiens not having Alex Galchenyuk and choosing to start Al Montoya over Carey Price.
The Canadiens are wrapping up a five game road trip in which the first four games were all decided by one goal, winning two in extra time and losing two in regulation. The Canadiens have only won 2 of their last 7 road games. Even with their struggles on the road, the Canadiens lead the NHL in wins and point percentage. When you combine being the 5th best in goals against per game and 8th best in goals for per game, wins are likely to follow.
With Galchenyuk missing tonight, former Nashvile Predators Shea Weber and Alexander Radulov turn into the leading goal scorer and point producer for the Canadiens, respectively. Blues fans might not realize it but Paul Byron has as many goals (7) as Max Pacioretty and more than Radulov and Brendan Gallagher. With Weber and Andrein Markov, the Canadiens have 2 defensemen averaging more than 2/3 of a point per game.
Montoya has struggled against the Blues, posting only an 87.3% save percentage. Unfortunately for Blues fans, Jake Allen has struggled more against the Canadiens, posting only an 86.5% save percentage. Last season, Allen lost his only start against the Canadiens.
Over the past two seasons, the Blues are only 1-3 against the Canadiens but they did win their only home game last year. Last season, Allen made the road game start and lost, giving up 3 goals. Allen will be going for his 8th win in a row and hoping to turn his save percentage back around after two consecutive games below 90%.
The Blues will make two other lineup changes, inserting Jori Lehtera back into the lineup and having Joel Edmundson to replace the injured Robert Bortuzzo. Reports are that Bortuzzo will not even be evaluated for six weeks.
I expect these to be the lines tonight, assuming Jaskin is well enough to play:
Fabbri – Stastny – Perron
Schwartz - Steen - Tarasenko
Berglund – Lehtera - Jaskin
Upshall - Brodziak - Reaves
Bouwmeester – Pietrangelo
Gunnarsson – Shattenkirk
Edmundson - Parayko
Allen
Jammer’s 9 NHL Nuggets
1) The three best goal differential teams are all in the East – Rangers, Penguins and Canadiens.
2) The best goal differential team in the West is the Wild.
3) All of the Metropolitan teams earned at least a point in their last game.
4) The Flyers are the hottest team in the league having won 5 in a row.
5) Connor McDavid leads the league in points by 5.
6) Sidney Crosby is scoring 0.85 goals per game (70 goal pace for 82 games).
7) Erik Karlsson overtook Brent Burns in points to take the lead for all defensemen.
8) Patrik Laine leads all rookies in goals and points.
9) Devan Dubnyk leads all goalies (min 10 games) in GAA (1.63) and save % (94.6%)
It’s a great day for hockey.
Fellow Hockeybuzz bloggers
Nashville Predator's Paul McCann,
Winnipeg Jet's Peter Tessier and
Minnesota Wild's Dan Wallace have generously agreed to a friendly charity wager. We were hoping to do the whole division but don't have it fully represented yet. The blogger whose team finishes the highest the standings at the end of the year gets to pick a charity to whom the others donate in their name.
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