Blues Drop 3rd Straight Yet Playoff Hopes Still Alive

Washington Capitals vs St. Louis Blues - Game 79 Recap
Goals: Tarasenko (32) and Berglund (14)
Record 43-30-6

My Thoughts on the Game

• We started off great! Jake Allen made a great save on Alex Ovechkin and then Tarasenko scored 3 minutes and 38 seconds after they dropped the puck. What happened? 
• I tweeted "Our Russian scored before your Russian!" but boy, did things change quickly in the 2nd period!
• We kept Ovechkin off the scoresheet until he got an empty-netter at the end of the game, but we just stood by and watched as Nicklas Backstrom scored 51 seconds into the 2nd period. Then about 2 minutes later we watched Alex Chiasson score on a long stretch pass that went past 4 Blues players as he skated in all alone on Jake.
• Their 3rd goal was sick, nasty, and dirty! Andre Burakovsky skated into the offensive zone and took the puck behind his back and then between his own legs as he totally faked out Vince Dunn. He skated around him like he was one of the statues out in front of Scottrade. All Vince could do was poke at him as he went around and put the puck in the net over Jake's shoulder.
• The line of Alexander Steen, Kyle Brodziak and Patrik Berglund worked hard and after two tip shots by Berglund didn't find the net, the Big Swede got the puck back and shot it in off a Washington defenders leg. The puck snuck inside the post on the short side to draw the Blues back to a one-goal deficit at 3-2. But, we couldn't get anything else in the net and tie it up.
• We needed points desperately but have only managed 1 in the last 3 games. 
• As I said a little bit earlier, I think we have had a tendency to do a little too much watching and standing around when the other team has the puck in our end. We get caught not finding men and putting a body on them and that's when we get burned. 
• I rewind the DVR and watch a lot of the goals in slow motion and there are lots of times when our guys are just standing and watching and their reaction is too late when they find someone.
• When we are on our game, I think our defense and our forecheck is menacing and hard to play against. But, there have been too many times this season where we've had lapses and those lapses have not only led to goals but losses and stretches of hockey where we find ourselves asking "What happened to our team? Where did the team that was tearing it up at certain times this season go?"
• One guy I'd like to point out that I saw working really hard was Dimitri Jaskin. He may not have been perfect, I don't pretend to know. But I did see him hustling and giving it everything he had several times in this game.
• Good news is this - IF we could win 2 of our last 3 and one of those 2 wins would be over Colorado in the last regular season game in regulation, there's no way Colorado can beat us out of that last spot.
• The Blackhawks are talking smack and saying how nice it would be to see the Blues miss the playoffs and how they want to help make that happen. They shouldn't need it with their playoff lives at stake, but if the Blues didn't have any material for the locker room bulletin board, they do now. 

#AllTogetherNowStL #LGB