ST. LOUIS – A team that had their number in two previous meetings this month alone, the St. Louis Blues needed a better effort – and result – against the Nashville Predators, who have been coming on as of late.
And with the Blues coming off a four-day Christmas break, nobody ever knows how a team will play after having a lengthy break.
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The Blues were able to play a grind-it-out game and use a two-goal effort from Pavel Buchnevich, and Brayden Schenn scored for his 700th NHL point, and Joel Hofer made 29 saves in a 3-2 win against the Predators at Enterprise Center on Saturday.
The Blues (15-16-8) moved two points ahead of the Predators (16-17-4) in a bunched up group of teams chasing one of two spots in the Western Conference wild card.
Let’s tackle Saturday’s game observations:
* A strong start was needed – Let’s face it. In two previous matchups against the Predators, who have outscored the Blues 12-4 in games on Dec. 11 in Nashville (7-2) and Dec. 15 in St. Louis (5-2), Nashville has had the better jump and had played with the lead for the majority of those games.
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The Blues’ first period was sharp and much needed and they carried a 2-1 lead into the second intermission.
The Predators are a heavy forechecking side, and the Blues didn’t allow them – at least early on – to establish a territorial edge.
“Our first period I thought was our best period in the game,” Blues coach Jim Montgomery said. “We were fast, we were good in transition offensively and defensively. From scoring chances we keep, they were not exact maybe, but they were pretty exact, 8-2 in the first. That was a pleasant surprise after a four-day break.”
In Nashville, the Blues were down 2-0 midway through the opening period and had to chase the result. And four nights later in this building, they fell behind 27 seconds into the game, and even though they tied the game, they fell behind 1:23 into the second and chased the rest of that game.
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Saturday was their first lead against this team.
“It was all about the start tonight,” Schenn said. “I think the past few times we’ve played them, we haven’t came out the way we needed to and we’re chasing the game. I thought tonight, was it our ‘A’ game? No, but we played hard. There were spurts in that game. I thought we had a good first, parts of a good second and played good defense in the third.”
Robert Thomas, who had two assists, said, “Any time you’re coming out of the brwak, first periods are usually sloppy. But we came out with purpose and played well and really set the tone for the game. Starts are so important, something we’re really emphasizing on. It’s nice to feel good about yourself coming out of the first period.”
* Buchnevich needs to score – Let’s face it, it hasn’t been a season thus far that Buchnevich has been satisfied with, at least from an offensive standpoint.
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He’s up to seven goals on the season in 39 games, which isn’t great by any stretch, but he now has five the past 15 games after just two – in back-to-back games – the first 24. And Saturday marked his first multi-goal game of the season.
His first of the game put the Blues up for good at 2-1 at 18:14 of the first period when a little bit of good fortune came his way off a 2-on-1 in which Buchnevich tried passing to Jake Neighbours, but Nashville defenseman Roman Josi went down to block it, the puck came right back to Buchnevich, who put the backhand into the top half of the net, pulling a monkey off his back with his first goal in nine games:
“Time will tell,” Buchnevich said. “Time will tell.”
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And his second, which ultimately was the game-winner at 4:40 of the third that made it 3-1, it was a perfectly-executed play with Philip Broberg’s outlet pass to Thomas, who dropped it to Buchnevich inside the blue line. Buchnevich carried the puck into the slot, and Juuse Saros made the first save, but Buchnevich followed his rebound and patiently outwaited the Nashville goalie before calmly lifting a shot into the far side of the net:
“It was a muffin shot before and I got kind of a rebound myself,” Buchnevich said. “Can’t score on first shot, so I just take (the) rebound.”
“Second goal was awesome,” Thomas said. “That’s something that you can kind of see him go he’s getting his confidence back and scoring instead of looking to pass all the time. Just having the patience to kind of flick it in that corner is a great sight for everyone to see and happy for him to get two tonight.”
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The Blues’ top line with Neighbours, Thomas and Buchnevich needed a game in which it helped carry the load and got it.
“That line was really good for us,” Montgomery said.
* Hofer played well, but got away with a near fatal error – Hofer, who started his eighth game the past 14, was locked in and playing well. He was seeing pucks again and not allowing any juicy rebounds with Predators forwards crowding the crease and crashing his net. And as customary to teams nowadays, the Predators were doing everything possible that when they were putting pucks into the Blues’ zone, they were doing their best to make them hard rims. But Hofer was getting to most, if not all of them.
However, he has a penchant of sometimes either holding onto the puck too long or making a risky but in his eyes, confident play. But he was playing with fire on this night and got lucky he didn’t get burnt by a particular rim he corralled but then trying to play the puck through the middle of the ice, old friend Ryan O’Reilly, who is as shrewd and sharp with his hand-eye coordination, knocked down a wrister outlet right in front for Steven Stamkos to slam home that would have tied the game 2-2 at 17:07 of the second period.
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But … but … hold on. The Blues challenged for offside. Here comes the mulligan, and it wasn’t even close.
On the entry, Stamkos was clearly offside, and the goal would be wiped off and back to 2-1, a lead in which the Blues would carry into the third before holding off.
“Yeah, we thought it was (an easy challenge),” Montgomery said. “We were surprised, but maybe they didn’t understand. Maybe it took a while for them to catch on that the guy had come back out, so it wasn’t a delay anymore.”
Hofer, according to stats, had four defensive zone turnovers trying to relay pucks, and it would have been five had the goal not been wiped off. It’s good to have a solid puck-playing goalie. But it’s also good to have one that isn’t as risky at times.
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“We’re going to trust him and ‘Binner’ when playing the puck because they make good decisions,” Montgomery said. “Unfortunately if you’re a goaltender and you don’t make the right decision, everybody knows it. There’s no one behind you. But he’s really good with the puck, we encourage him to play the puck as much as he can and he wants to. He’s a very athletic goaltender.”
* Third period was not with an attack mindset – The Predators at times seemed to smell blood in the water when it came to attacking the Blues.
The offensive zone possession time would up being 9:14 for the Predators and around 4:30 for the Blues. Not good by any stretch, but it was a lot of third period stuff when the Blues had a lead, and unlike the 6-2 win against the Florida Panthers on Dec. 20, they sat back and just played to protect the lead for the most part instead of managing the flow of the game at their pace.
“We come out in the second and we had some good moments and we had some poor moments, just not managing the puck well enough, things that you don’t want to see that bad habits would come back after not playing for four days, not even being on the ice,” Montgomery said. ‘We got through that, and then the third period, I thought we gave up too much. We just sat back. When you see forwards skating backwards for us and three at the same time, that’s not good. We’re not puck-pressuring, we’re not doing the things we need to do to not only defend a lead but extend a lead.”
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The Blues are now 12-1-1 when leading after two periods. They should be comfortable in that position, but there needs to be more reps in that department.
“We’re not a confident team in that time of the game right now, and we’ve got to build towards that,” Montgomery said. “We haven’t been in that situation all that much and we’ve got to develop the confidence to be the way out for each other. The empty-net goals, we could have at least five by now. It looks like we just panic and throw the puck down for an icing.”
* Congrats to Schenn – Schenn’s road to 700 points took 1,061 games, and it came on the power play that got the ball rolling at 8:45 of the first period, a power-play goal that made it 1-0 on a tipped shot at the right side of the net off a Cam Fowler wrister:
“It means you’ve got to keep going,” Schenn said of the milestone. “That’s kind of the mentality you have, you’re never satisfied but obviously an accomplishment you don’t get without an opportunity from coaches and being on good teams, good teammates, good linemates. That’s the reality of it. Just fortunate and lucky and grateful for playing this league as long as I have.”
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* Shorthanded goal was a result of a bad mindset with the power play – It was a chance to put the game on ice.
A high-sticking penalty on O’Reilly with 9:17 remaining was the chance to make it a three-goal game and end it.
Somehow, the Blues used it as a hand grenade, and they were all discombobulated in Nashville’s attack mindset down two goals, and Fedor Svechkov made it a 3-2 game with 7:57 to play when the Blues were changing and Erik Haula came off the boards on a give-and-go and Svechkov fired a beautiful shot into the top right corner and make it a game instead the rest of the way:
“Obviously you’d like to have that PK goal back that they scored, but ‘Hofe’ was great there tonight and we were able to close it out 6-on-5,” Schenn said.
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* Broberg continues to play big minutes – It was another ho-hum game for Broberg.
Not only are his outlet passes exceptional, as evidenced by the one he put to Thomas that led to Buchnevich’s eventual game-winner, but he’s playing in all important minutes.
The defenseman finished with 22:58 time on ice and was a plus-2 in the game with a team-leading four of 19 blocked shots.
“He was incredible tonight,” Thomas said. “He really set the tone for the team, he was skating so well, he made a ton of plays. I should have buried one on the first shift. That was a great play by him and it’s nice seeing guys like that feeling good, trust themselves.”
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Montgomery added, “He’s a young man that really pushes himself to try and be the best he can be every day. And we’re seeing that this year that every game. He’s been excellent for us, but he’s had some games where first period wasn’t very good, but he wills himself to be good in the second. And he’s becoming a tough-minded pro that doesn’t accept mediocrity.”
* Return of Kyrou, Snuggerud should balance offense – Jordan Kyrou and Jimmy Snuggerus each returned from injury on Saturday, and each will eventually provide some balanced offense.
Kyrou had his chances but didn’t bury them but played 17:11 in the game and led the Blues with four shots on goal on six attempts; Snuggerud played 14:09 and had two hits.
“I think you saw it in the first period the addition of those two back into our lineup, the skill and the speed, our team played really fast in the first period,” Montgomery said. “I think it was in large part was because everyone was excited to have them back.”
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