ST. LOUIS – Jim Montgomery spoke before the St. Louis Blues took on the Chicago Blackhawks on Friday that the players needed to play for each other, after being embarrassed against the Nashville Predators on Thursday.
Mission accomplished as the Blues rebounded with a strong effort and held off their divisional rivals, 3-2, at Enterprise Center, ending a two-game losing streak.
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Logan Mailloux and Matt Luff each scored his first Blues goal, and Justin Faulk also scored, while Robert Thomas extended his point streak to four games (three goals, three assists) with a two-assist night. Joel Hofer made 27 saves as the Blues improved to 12-14-7 on the season.
“Very much so, right from the drop of the puck, you could feel it, the crowd was into it because our guys were there for each other, rallying for each other,” Montgomery said. “We were connected. We still made mistakes, and that’s going to happen in this game because there’s another team playing, but the effort and the second- and third-effort, playing for each other makes up for a lot.”
Let’s look at Friday’s game observations:
* Mailloux sheds Monkey, Luff scores in place where he got first NHL goal – Role players can make all the difference in winning and losing, and although Mailloux isn’t a role player, Luff is.
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But for Mailloux, it had to be a ginormous monkey off his back after going 19 games without scoring while seeing and obviously hearing that Zack Bolduc is producing with the Montreal Canadiens.
But Mailloux put the Blues ahead 1-0 at 3:41 on a beautiful shot from the left circle past Spencer Knight. It developed with Thomas gaining the zone, and feathering a puck to the opposite side of the ice knowing Mailloux is coming off the bench with open ice, and the defenseman took advantage of shooting through defenseman Louis Crevier’s legs and a Jake Neighbours screen on a delayed penalty, one that Neighbours helped induce:
“It felt good to get the monkey off the back,” Mailloux said. “It was a heck of a play, kind of an area pass by ‘Tommer.’ They had a delayed penalty there. I was coming off the bench and I saw it and jumped up and it was a great screen by ‘Jakey’ in front too.”
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Luff’s first goal since April 4, 2023 with the Detroit Red Wings against the Montreal Canadiens was a nice play from Colton Parayko’s outlet pass to Robby Fabbri along the lefthand side, and Fabbri recognizes Luff is coming down the slot, finds him, and Luff whips his wrister by Knight to the glove side at 11:48 of the first for a 2-0 lead:
“It was a good pass by ‘Fabs,’” Luff said. “Always nice to get it done and nice to get a win too.
“Me, ‘Ginger’ and ‘Sunny’ just as a role line, I think were pretty good today so it’s nice to obviously contribute, roll that into the next game and see what happens.”
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* Being way better at both net fronts – It’s obvious that the net fronts on Thursday were not nearly good enough.
The Predators could have pitched tents and camped out in front of the Blues’ goal, and the Blues were virtually non-existent at the opposite end.
That all changed on Friday, and it had to.
“Hundred percent,” Mailloux said. “I think especially after yesterday, had a few goals just kind of laying there in front and we got beat. That was definitely a big part.”
It included two fights (Mailloux vs. Colton Dach and Dylan Holloway vs. Connor Murphy).
“We had two fights tonight, but that’s not common anymore,” Montgomery said. “But that’s part of it. You see guys driving middle lane, stopping at the net. When defensemen were shooting, we had bodies at the net. Defensemen were pinching pucks, forwards were replacing them. In the D-zone, the box-outs were hard and heavy at our own net, getting back winning goal line races so we can break pucks out quickly. Those kind of things. It’s just effort-based and it’s doing the job so someone else doesn’t have to do it.”
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* Needed a response after Thursday – Getting embarrassed is never fun. And it certainly wasn’t for the Blues.
They needed a response and got one.
“I think we talked about it before the game we have a homestand here of four games and we wanted to start off right, and I think we did,” Luff said.
“Team toughness makes us hard to play against,” Mailloux said. “That’s what we want to be. We don’t want teams looking forward to coming in here and playing us. It was fun.”
“It was really important. It was great to see that our leaders led and that our young players and players that have been on call-up, everyone chipped in,” Montgomery said. “It’s nice to see everybody again play hard and play for each other.”
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* Blues offset Hawks push with big goal – The Blackhawks pushed to start the second coming in only down one (2-1) on Wyatt Kaiser’s goal late in the first at 15:50.
The Hawks quickly had the first five shots to even up with the Blues at 11-11, but the Blues pushed back, and had a gained edge for a number of minutes there when Faulk made it 3-1 at 8:57 when he stuffed a shot under Knight’s arm once he got a pass from Tyler Tucker from the point:
It was a critical goal because the Hawks would get one back on Andre Burakovsky’s goal at 14:08 of the third period but the Blues finished the win off.
* Unfortunate Bedard injury – One always says to not take a second for granted.
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Well, for the Blackhawks, the final 0.8 seconds could prove to to be costly when star forward Connor Bedard was injured on what coach Jeff Blashill said afterwards was a “freak accident.”
Bedard and Blues captain Brayden Schenn lined up for the draw to the left of Hofer in the right circle, and Chicago basically needed to get a quick shot off to have any chance of tying it. Schenn went for a stick lift and Bedard fell backwards awkwardly, got up immediately clutching his right shoulder and down the tunnel.
Blashill said Bedard will not play against the Detroit Red Wings on Saturday, but if the center misses any extended period of time, it will be tough to see for Chicago and hockey fans in general.
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* Fabbri continues to play well – It’s only two games, but it’s evident that Fabbri doesn’t want this to be a short stint, his second with the Blues.
This is not points in back to back games (two assists); he had two shots on goal and three more hits, including this one on Teuvo Teravainen that put the Hawks forward into the Blues bench and nearly score on it:
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