Sunday, November 26, 2017

Minnesota Wild vs St. Louis Blues - Game 24 Recap

Blues Bounce Back With 6-3 Victory Over Minnesota Wild
Goals: Stastny (6), Jaskin (3), Schwartz (12,13), Brodziak (3) and Blais (1)
Record 17-6-1
My Thoughts on Tonight's Game

  • I was at the game, so I like to rewatch it on the DVR in order to put my thoughts on paper.  It's hard to do when you're at the game, cheering and talking to your friends, etc.
  • This was a good "bounce back" game after the tough loss at home the night before against another division rival, the Nashville Predators. The Blues lost that one 2-0.
  • I felt like St. Louis was in control of the game pretty much from start to finish.  They had a couple of lapses, but thanks to some outstanding saves by Jake Allen in the first period they held a 3-0 lead after the first and were never in a position to lose that lead.
  • Minnesota played a very undisciplined game, taking 21 minutes in penalties. The Blues, despite struggling on the power play all season, took advantage and scored 3 times on the power play in the game.  A noticeable change to the power play included recent call-up Sammy Blais. Whatever other changes were made seemed to work as the Blues were 3 for 8 for a 37.5% success rate, nearly double their overall season percentage, which now stands at 18.1%, 20th in the league.
  • All four of the offensive lines scored goals and points again tonight.  This was the second game during the home stand that this has happened. The Edmonton game being the other.
    • Stastny-Steen-Sobotka line: 1 goal, 3 assists
    • Schenn-Schwartz-Tarasenko line: 2 goals, 2 assists
    • Upshall-Brodziak-Thorburn line: 1 goal, 1 assist
    • Jaskin-Sundqvist-Blais line: 2 goals
  • Parayko continued his good offensive play with 2 assists.
  • To show how up and down things can be, Minnesota goalie Devan Dubnyk had 3 consecutive shutouts a week ago, but has given up 18 goals in the past 4 games.
  • After Minnesota scored the only goal in the 2nd period, Kyle Brodziak opened the scoring in the third with an unassisted, short-handed goal when he poke checked and stole a puck on his own blue line, then skated in on Dubnyk, wristing it home high on the glove side.
  • Both teams had a short-handed goal in this game. I'm sure someone has that stat somewhere, but I'll bet that doesn't happen very often.
  • Blais scored his first NHL goal.
  • Schwartz had two more goals and now leads the team in goals (13) and points (32).
  • Thorburn had one of the longest fights I can remember seeing.  He battled it out with former Blue Chris Stewart.  Although it looked like Stewart may have landed more punches, he actually had to go to the locker room afterwards to get his nose put back in place. 
  • As good as this team has been, they lead the league in points although they have played one more game than Tampa Bay, there are still things that can be improved upon. 
    • Faceoff percentage - Blues are at 48.5% (24th in the league)
    • Penalty Kill - 76.7% (25th in the league) 
    • Power Play - 18.1% (20th in the league)
  • "Experts" say that between Power Play and Penalty Kill %, you want to be at or over 100%. The Blues are improving but at 94.8 still show room for improvement in that part of the game.
  • The Blues will wrap up their longest home stand of the season with Anaheim next Wednesday and the LA Kings on Friday.
#AllTogetherNowStL #LGB #SpreadArisLight

2 comments:

  1. Thanks for sharing your insights!! I hope you had a great time at the game. LGB!!!

    ReplyDelete
  2. I always have a great time at the games. I was glad my wife came along to this one. We both had fun.

    ReplyDelete

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