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Maroon & Allen sit, Soshnikov's 1st game, Schenn still hurt & Thomas stays

November 9, 2018, 2:45 PM ET [6 Comments]
Jason Millen
St Louis Blues Blogger • RSSArchiveCONTACT


The good news, bad news season continues for the Blues. While the Blues won (good news) on Tuesday night, they got outplayed most of the night (bad news). While the power play extended its scoring streak at six games (good news) on their 1st power play of the game the power play was very poor on their next three attempts (bad news).

Thank goodness Chad Johnson was on top of his game while stopping 38 of 39 shots, many of them quality shots (6 high danger and 19 mid danger). He bailed out the Blues and their incredible 14 giveaways. Ryan O’reilly did it all on the offensive side of things with his 1st NHL hat trick, five shots on goal (more than 2x the next highest Blue) while dominating in the face-off circle in over 22 minutes of ice time.

Robby Fabbri’s scored his 1st goal and had his ice time increased to over 14 minutes. Vladimir Tarasenko contributed two assists as well.

The game had two great examples of why you shouldn’t necessarily devalue the importance of secondary assists. On the 1st Ryan O’Reilly goal, notice how the great read by Alex Pietrangelo disrupts the Hurricanes zone exit attempt and causes the turnover.

The change in possession leads to this goal.

On the 2nd goal, Robert Thomas sucks in a 2nd Hurricane player before making the pass that springs Perron and Fabbri on a 2 on 1.

It leads to Robby Fabbri’s 1st goal in quite a while.

The Blues got some help Tuesday night with the Stars and Wild losing in regulation, Wednesday night with the Avalanche’s regulation loss, and last night with the Hawks losing their 1st game post Coach Q.

For as bad as the Blues have been, if they win their games in hand they would be tied for a wild card position. Of course, that is a big if.

Tonight the Blues will host the San Jose Sharks who lost to the Stars in Dallas last night, 4-3. Expect Sharks backup goalie Aaron Dell to get the start since Martin Jones went last night. Also, expect Marc-Edouard Vlasic, Brent Burns and Erik Karlsson to play between 75 and 80 minutes combined.

The Sharks have the 3rd best penalty kill, the 2nd most shots per game and give up the 3rd fewest shots per game, giving them the 3rd best shot differential per game in the league.

The Blues come into the league as the 3rd highest scoring team with the 3rd best power play. Unfortunately, they are giving up the 4th most goals per game.

For the Blues it sounds like Chad Johnson will get the start in net, he earned it, and Pat Marron will try and reset from the press box. Brayden Schenn is doubtful. Robert Thomas looks like a go, meaning he should be in St. Louis all season as it will be his 10th game.

The lines may be in the blender but will start out like this:
Schwartz - O'Reilly - Tarasenko
Fabbri - Thomas - Perron
Steen - Bozak - Soshnikov
Sanford - Barbashev – Sundqvist
Gunnarsson - Pietrangelo
Dunn - Parayko
Edmundson - Schmaltz
Johnson

The moving down of Sanford doesn’t surprise me as his game seems to have regressed in the last week in my opinion. What will be more interesting to see is how Maroon being out impacts the power play. Look for Schwartz to move to the 1st power play unit and for Thomas to get a shot on the 2nd unit.

NHL Champions for Charity
We’ve gotten some traction on the charity wager among the Central Division bloggers. More on that to come.

It’s a great day for hockey.
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