Goals: Tarasenko (7), Edmundson (4), Pietrangelo (5,6), Paajarvi (2) and Sobotka (3)
Record 11-3-1
My Thoughts on Tonight's Game
- Toronto is a young, fast team that is headlined by 2nd year pro, Auston Matthews. Matthews is big at 6'3" and 216 lb. and he's very creative with the puck. He scored 40 goals and 29 assists in his rookie season last year after being selected 1st overall by Toronto. Prior to the season, I felt like this would be a team that could make a nice run into the playoffs. They started off really well, winning 7 or their first 9 games, but they find themselves struggling of late having lost 6 of their last 8.
- The Blues were coming off a 2-0 shutout loss Thursday night at home courtesy of the Philadelphia Flyers. I felt like the way they played in this game showed they are capable of bouncing back and not letting one loss get them down. The last thing you want to see is for your team to start losing successive games. The Blues have managed to avoid back-to-back losses since their road trip in mid October where they lost to the Florida Panthers and the Tampa Bay Lightning.
- I felt like the first period tonight was pretty evenly played with Toronto notching the only tally on just 6 shots on goal. The goal was set up when Toronto stole the puck in the St. Louis zone out near the blue line. A quick pass the other way set up a 2 on 2 where both Toronto players drifted down the left side of the ice, drawing the Blues defenders with them, which left the entire right side open for defenseman Borgman to step up into the play and he beat Jake Allen high on the blocker side to take the early lead.
- St. Louis came out strong in the 2nd period and wasted very little time as Tarasenko scored just 2:33 in. The goal was set up by two great plays by Blues rookie d-man Vince Dunn. He first saved what looked to be a breakaway with a slick backcheck stealing the puck and sending it back the other way. As the Blues applied offensive pressure, Dunn again did a nice job holding the puck in the zone in the middle of the ice. Brayden Schenn quickly fed the puck to Schwartz in the slot who then took a wicked shot on goal. The rebound came off to the left of the goal where Tarasenko had circled around to and he stuck it home past the diving Toronto goaltender, Frederik Andersen.
- Less than 5 minutes later, Brayden Schenn's shot was gloved by Andersen but he couldn't hang on and the puck fell right on the waiting stick of Joel Edmundson and he buried it in the back of the net for his 4th goal of the season making it 2-1 Blues.
- 3 Minutes and 18 seconds later Alex Pietrangelo scored a goal that should be in the week's top highlights. He skated up the right side and down in towards the net, just as he got to the faceoff dot to the left of the goaltender he lifted his skate is if he would launch a wrist shot towards the goal. The fake pulled the goalie out of the net a little to cut down the angle, Pietrangelo held onto the puck and skated deeper, another slight fake and the goalie went down but left himself a foot or so from the near post. Pietrangelo turned his body around and backed across the goal line just left of the goal and reached out with his backhand and snuck the puck into the net nearly from all the way behind the goal. It was beautiful! Blues led 3-1 after 2 periods.
- Early in the third, in fact just 1:22 into the period after a shot on goal by Jaskin the rebound came out front near a Toronto defender, but Paajarvi's quick stick was on the puck and sent in past the goalie before the Toronto player could get a stick on it. The goal was listed as unassisted but I felt Jaskin should have had an assist on the goal. Blues led 4-1.
- Toronto scored again when some heavy action around the Blues goal got Jake Allen turned around. The goal actually went into the net with Jake totally turned around and his back to the shoooter. Score was now 4-2
- The SSS line was up next and all three players worked the triangle to perfection as Stastny fed Steen who then hit Sobotka for a goal that gave St. Louis a 3 goal lead again at 5-2.
- After a series of penalties led to a 4 on 3 for the Blues they ended their power play drought when Pietrangelo scored after the goaltender couldn't contain the puck from Tarasenko's shot. Schenn did a good job tying up the defense, giving Petro time to get to the puck and poke it home. Blues now up 6-2.
- Shortly thereafter, Toronto's Hyman and Brown worked their way behind the defense and scored with Blues draped all over them. Now it's 6-3
- Toronto added another goal when St. Louis gave up and odd-man rush for the final score of 6-4.
- This was an exciting game to see in person. Lots of goals and lots of action. I felt like we did a better job getting traffic in front of the net tonight and a better job of keeping them out from in front of our net.
- We've been pretty disciplined, not taking a lot of penalties. Tonight we had a holding call in the first and a holding and hooking calls in the third. We were 1 for 4 on the power play and perfect on the penalty kill as Toronto went 0 for 2 when they had the advantage.
- Although Jake was only at .871 save percentage, this is a high-flying team that scores a lot of goals. The main thing is that the Blues scored more and we won. End of story.
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