Tampa Bay Lightning vs St. Louis Blues - Game 32 Recap

Lightning Defeat Blues in Battle of East vs West

Goals: None
Record 21-9-2

My Thoughts on Tampa Bay Game

• The Blues entered this game with more injuries, which is nothing new to this team this season. In the past few days they have lost Jayden Schwartz for 6 weeks minimum, Alex Pietrangelo for a week, Carter Hutton for a week and now Jay Bouwmeester is 'day to day'.
• The all too familiar "Next Man Up" mentality was again put into practice as Jordan Schmaltz was called up to fill the void on defense, while Ivan Barbashev got the call for the offense.
• Blues fans everywhere were fretting with phrases like "here we go again" and "why us?" while others calmly scooted up to the edge of their seats to see how this team would pull together and overcome the latest rash of injuries.
• For my money, the Blues were the best team in this game.  Granted, the scoreboard didn't show it, but if you were to look at the stats and didn't know who won the game you might think the Blues shutout Tampa Bay instead of it being the other way around. The Blues outshot Tampa 32-25.  They won the face-offs nearly 2-1.  The Blues killed all 3 penalties. They outhit Tampa 24-19, blocked 24 shots to Tampa's 9 and had 12 takeaways to Tampa's 6.
• The Blues held possession of the puck most of the game, and the times when Tampa was in the offensive zone, the Blues were all over them.  The Blues just had one obstacle.  His name was Andrei Vasilevskiy. 
• Vasilevskiy is now 20-4-1 with a 2.15 GAA and a .933 save percentage. He stopped all 32 shots on goal including some spectacular saves on several Blues, including saves on breakaways, saves against 2 on 1 rushes several times and even a weird bounce off the glass that he had to dive back into the net and make a kick save on. The Blues' last scoring chance was with 6 attackers on the ice. Vasilevskiy made another good save on a Tarasenko shot to preserve the shutout.
• Tampa scored with just 44 seconds left in the first period as it seemed like they really ratcheted up the pressure in the final minute and a half of the period. The Lightning's Brayden Point took a pass in the slot from behind the net.  His first shot hit the post and he followed up with a rebound shot into the net.
• The second period was scoreless but with 8 minutes left in the game and the score still just 1-0, Tarasenko found Sobotka across the ice. The goaltender seemed to be cheating heavily to Tarasenko's side and Sobotka found himself with a wide open net.  Sobotka one-timed the pass and the shot went parallel to the goal line between the goalie and the net, missing everything.  It was definitely the Blues best scoring chance. I'll bet the lesser-known Vladi didn't sleep well thinking about this one.
• 2 minutes later Nikita Kucherov sniped a goal on an even rush. Allen was screened slightly by Schenn who was defending the league's leading goal scorer. Kucherov now has 21 goals on the season and is tied with Ovechkin. 
• An empty netter by Tyler Johnson accounted for the final score of 3-0.
• Again, I think the Blues played a better game than the Lightning.  They just didn't win. I thought the young guys filled in nicely and weren't the reason we lost this game. It's pretty impressive that the 3rd defensive pair was rookie Vince Dunn and Schmaltz who was playing his first NHL game of the season. Neither of them were on the ice for any of the three Tampa Bay goals.
• The Blues will not see Tampa again this year. At least not in the regular season.  The only way these two teams would play again would be in a Stanley Cup final. And I think the way the two regular season matchups played out, the Blues still have something to prove to the Tampa Bay Lightning. Time will tell, but it would be nice to have the final say-so against this team.
• Next up are the Anaheim Ducks.  They beat us 3-2 at Scottrade on Nov 29th.  They are 2-4 since that game with wins over Ottowa and Carolina, losses to Minnesota, Vegas, Nashville and Columbus.

#AllTogetherNowStL #LGB