Saturday, December 9, 2017

St. Louis Blues vs Detroit Red Wings - Game 30 Recap

Goals! Goals! Blues Win 6-1 in Detroit's Little Caesar's Arena (Pizza! Pizza!)

Goals: Schwartz (14), Sobotka (6), Upshall (5), Bouwmeester (1), Jaskin (4)
and Schenn (15)
Record 20-8-2




My Thoughts on today's games
  • Blues had good puck possession and quick passing to start the game, controlling things early.
  • The forecheck was also very aggressive and limited Detroit's possessions and scoring chances in the first 9 minutes or so.
  • Detroit was the first team to get the man advantage a little over 9 minutes in, on a high-sticking call on Sammy Blais. The Red Wings looked like they had the puck on a string as they kept possession in the Blues' zone for all but 10 seconds of the 2 minute minor, but failed to score.
  • Immediately after the penalty was killed, the Blues came on the rush.  Steen passed to Jayden Schwartz who was flying in from the top of the circles.  He shot and then continued towards the goal at breakneck speed and skated right into the rebound and stuffed it home before anyone else could get to it.
  • Jake made some good saves in the first period as the Red Wings ended up outshooting the Blues 11-4.  He also caught a break when the Red Wings hit the crossbar on their second power play opportunity.
  • Detroit took a penalty late in the period to give St. Louis a power play for the last 47 seconds of the 1st and then the first 1:13 to start the 2nd. It's hard to get momentum on the power play when it's broken up by an intermission.
  • The biggest concern in the first period was some sort of injury to Jayden Schwartz who after blocking a shot, had to be helped off the ice and did not return to the game.
  • St. Louis didn't score on the power play in the beginning of the 2nd but Sobotka got his 6th goal of the season a couple of minutes later. He sniped one in over the left shoulder of Detroit goalie, Jimmy Howard from the top of the left circle.
  • 2 minutes and 10 seconds after Sobotka's goal, Upshall stole the puck at the blue line and skated in on Howard. Upshall faked right, then left, then right and then went left and poked it home between Howard's legs for his 5th goal of the season, this one unassisted.
  • The Blues only managed 9 shots on goal through the first two periods but Jay Bouwmeester scored to put them up 4-0 on the team's 8th shot on goal in the game at the 16:26 mark of the second period. It was his first of the season. It looked like Blais or Berglund may have tipped it before it got to the net, but they credited #19 after taking a closer look.
  • It was no surprise that Detroit pulled Howard at the end of the second after he let in 4 goals on just the 9 shots.
  • Detroit finally scored at the 7:18 mark of the third when Frans Nielsen cleaned up a puck in front of the net after Allen made 2 or 3 saves on the play and just couldn't corral the puck. Everyone seemed to be trapped on one side of the net and Allen didn't have any help clearing the puck.
  • St. Louis got back to a 4 goal lead less than 2 minutes later when Pietrangelo made a nice pass up the ice to a streaking Jaskin who skated in and got backup goalie Petr Mrazek to go down into the butterfly and then tucked the puck in behind him. It was Jaskin's 4th goal of the season and fruit for all of his excellent efforts, especially of late.
  • Schenn topped off the scoring in the final minute of the game to make it 6-1.
  • It's a shame, Jake should have had another shutout today but it was not to be. He stopped 28 of 29 shots for a .966 save percentage. 
  • With the back-to-back game tomorrow in St. Louis against Buffalo will we see rookie backup Ville Husso?
#AllTogetherNowStL #LGB

4 comments:

  1. Great points! I think our energy is up and down right now. We do great when we're not dealing with a lot of penalites!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. We've been pretty disciplined the last 3 games. You're right. We've had 3,3 and 2 minor penalties in the past 3 games and won them all.

      Delete
  2. Quality over quantity was definitely the main factor of this win.

    Detroit’s PP was great. Stunning game by Allen.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Well, what we lacked in quantity as far as shots on goal was concerned we certainly had plenty of quantity in the number of goals we scored. 6 will win you most games.

      Delete

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