Goals: Tarasenko (6), Schwartz (8), Gunnarsson (3) and Sobotka (2)
Record 10-2-1
My Thoughts on Tonight's Game
- The tone of the first period was set by the line of Upshall, Brodziak and Jaskin who went in hard with some aggressive forechecking.
- The LA play by play announcers said the first period was the best they had played all year and they did put some early pressure on Jake Allen with some good shots on goal, but the period ended with no score.
- Blues did a good job during 1st penalty kill as the Kings didn't get a shot on goal.
- Vladimir Tarasenko was also very aggressive early with a couple of big hits on the forecheck. He said after the game in his interview that this team is all playing for each other and nobody is doing that more so than #91.
- The 2nd period was wide open with 5 goals but I felt the Blues outplayed the Kings in every way putting 14 shots on goal to LA's 7.
- The first Blues goal started on the other end of the ice when Schwartz got the puck and passed it through his legs to clear the zone, then after a turnover back to the Kings on the other end, Schwartz stole a pass in the neutral zone and hit Tarasenko down the left hand side for a goal that beat goalie, Jonathan Quick high on the blocker side.
- Less than 3 minutes later Tarasenko and Schwartz were at it again, attacking after the backhand shot attempt by Schenn, Schwartz put the puck in the back of the net off the rebound.
- LA scored to close within a goal on a fluke play. Pietrangelo broke his stick near the blue line in the Blues end and headed for the bench but the puck fell on the stick of Pearson for the Kings and he walked in on Jake unimpeded and made a nice move to open the wickets and stuck the puck in the five hole.
- But 3 minutes later Gunnarsson scored his 3rd goal of the year and the 14th goal by a Blues defenseman on the season when he launched a puck from the left side blue line that flipped and flopped like a dying quail on its way into the back of the net. Good traffic in front kept Quick from seeing the puck and the Blues were back on top by 2.
- After another Blues penalty, a deflected shot went in to close the score to 3-2. I've been saying it for a while now, it seems to me like we let too much traffic stand around in front of our goal. Anyone who looks back at the goals we've allowed this year, lots of them have been due to traffic in front of the net and it rarely looks like we've tried to put a body on them to move them out. No goaltender can see through players and see every puck, and that's what happened on this one.
- There wasn't much flow to the third period. LA was playing their last of 6 games on a long road trip and the Blues just wanted the clock to get to 00:00. It seemed to stand still for most of the period.
- Trying to even the score, the Kings pulled the goalie and Sobotka put one in the empty net for the final score of 4-2.
- I don't think we often appreciate how good our team defense is. Everyone on this team, from Tarasenko to the 3rd line defensemen, this team plays good defense. We've made some of the best teams in the league look like they have really struggled to get into an offensive rhythm.
- St. Louis is now 5-0-0 at home and leads the Western Division with 21 points.
#AllTogetherNowStL #LGB
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