Tonight the Blues will attempt to take a 3-1 strangle hold on their second round series with the Dallas Stars after defeating he Stars 4-3 on Monday night.
What a roller coaster of a game it was Monday night. Unlike the first two games, the Blues would come out firing on cylinders and score just 1:27 into the game. In what would look similar to a replay of the final Blues goal from Game 2, Jaden Schwartz deflected Colton Parayko’s shot from the right point past Ben Bishop, giving Schwartz 6 goals and 1 assist in his last 5 games.
The Blues would fail on their power play in the latter part of the 1st period while the Stars would capitalize on their only power play of the period after Jay Bouwmeester was sent off for tripping. Jordan Binnington has little chance on the Alexander Radulov goal thanks to a very good pass from Jason Spezza.
A very even 1st period would appropriately end tied 1-1.
The Blues would come out with their best or maybe second best second period of the entire playoffs, outshooting the Stars 15-11 and taking the lead back a little over 8 minutes into the period even though they were shorthanded for 20% of the period.
Vince Dunn would be the key to the Blues second goal, weaving around the Stars offensive zone, getting multiple players to engage him, allowing him to slide a pass to Robert Thomas for a quality chance. Bishop can’t control the rebound and Tyler Bozak is able to jam it home, into the net.
The 3rd period would be much like the 1st, fairly evenly played with each team getting a power play, having similar shot totals and scoring the same number of goals. The Stars would strike 1st in the 3rd period, just over 13 minutes into it on what Blues fans will see a very questionable non-call. While on the power play, Brayden Schenn is tripped:
The trip allows the Stars to break out into a 2 on 1. The Blues don’t play the 2 on 1 well and Binnington’s save pinballs around before Andrew Cogliano slams it into the empty net.
Alex Pietrangelo would ring the far post during the remaining power play before scoring only 1:18 after Cogliano’s goal and scoring just 17 seconds after the power play expired. The Blues continued their possession through the end of the power play, converting on that extended possession. If I’m the Blues I count this as a power play goal in my unofficial power play conversion statistics.
The lead would be short lived as Tyler Seguin would tie the game 1:28 later after Pietrangelo served up this pizza that was somehow not counted as a giveaway.
Miro Heiskanen would make a good pass to Seguin through a crossed up Carl Gunnarsson.
Gunnarsson has been beat multiple times with passes through him in the last two games. This is a trend worth watching.
Pat Maroon would score the game winner two and a half minutes later, this time elevating his shot after he comes out from behind the net. Maroon’s goal will be keyed by a really smart play by Jay Bouwmeester and the Neymar like diving of Esa Lindell earlier in the game.
Let’s review Lindell’s embellishment penalty earlier in the game:
Oh wait, sorry that’s the wrong clip. Here is the correct clip:
On the game winning goal, watch Lindell and Maroon come out front together, battling for position. Maroon pushes Lindell and he goes down easy again. You aren’t very likely to get this type of call this late in the game. You’re never going to get this call after the embellishment Lindell performed earlier in the game.
Again, watch the pass by Bouwmeester into space and the elevation Maroon gets on the shot.
As a side note, this photo was making the rounds as it just looks kind of funny from the perspective of Blues fans.
If you consider the Pietrangelo goal to effectively be a power play goal, the Blues would have won the special teams battle, the shots battle, the blocked shots battle and the save percentage battle. As such, it’s easy to see how they won even though two of the Stars big scorers scored.
Other than the two penalties, Bouwmeester had a monster of a game and Vince Dunn had his best game of the playoffs in my opinion. Jordan Binnington was good, great at times. Thomas, Maroon and Bozak were the best line on the ice. Oskar Sundqvist played over 21 minutes. How many of you would have believed me in October if I said that Sundqvist would play over 21 minutes in a 2nd round playoff game?
Another one goal game puts the Blues and Stars as combining to play 15 of 18 effective one-goal games this playoffs.
Some of the post-game quotes seem worth mentioning. Craig Berube said “we’ve been a good road team all year. Our road record has been fantastic all year. I thought right from the get go we were engaged right away in the game. We were aggressive and sets the tone for us for the game.” When he was asked about the Blues being a team that can bounce back in the toughest moments, as they did repeatedly in Game 3 - “we’ve done that all year I think and you know so we’ve had practice at it (chuckle).” Most importantly Berube echoed what the eye has seen so far – “we’re a mentally tough team now.”
Also interesting, both coaches took the high road related to penalties. Berube avoid commenting on the non-call on the trip of Schenn saying they got beat up ice and Montgomery making nothing of Maroon’s push on Lindell on the game winning goal.
The Blues will go with the same lineup though Dunn swap places with Pietrangelo on the power play units. As such the lines should look like this:
Schwartz-O'Reilly-Tarasenko
Schenn-Sundqvist-Perron
Maroon-Bozak-Thomas
Fabbri-Barbashev-Steen
Gunnarsson-Pietrangelo
Bouwmeester-Parayko
Dunn-Bortuzzo
Binnington
The Stars on the other hand appear to be moving Seguin to center Mats Zuccarello and Jason Dickinson and Roope Hintz will center Jamie Benn and Alexander Radulov. Joel Hanley will replace Taylor Fedun on defense.
NHL Champions for Charity
Given that the Predators pulled out the division title, all be it not without some controversial officiating in the last couple of games, Best Buddies Tennessee
https://www.bestbuddies.org/tennessee/ is the beneficiary. Best Buddies Tennessee is dedicated to establishing a volunteer movement that creates opportunities for one-to-one friendships, integrated employment, leadership development and inclusive living opportunities for individuals with intellectual and developmental disabilities. As a side note, I recently got to experience a Best Buddies even in the St. Louis area that was led by the Eureka high school football team. It was a lot of fun and brought a lot of joy to those involved.
It’s a great day for hockey.
St Louis Blues Blogger • 
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