St. Louis Blues Pros/Cons From 2021-22 Game 37 Vs Seattle
The St. Louis Blues playing for a new team for the first time is a rarity and something that doesn’t happen very often. However, although some fans got excited here or there, this game didn’t have a special feel.
As for the ice cream product, it started out sloppily and both teams mostly struggled through the first few minutes. While we never like to hear excuses, both teams had one for them.
Seattle played a tough game in Dallas the night before and have remained without a win in their last seven games. The Blues were already understaffed and found that Logan Brown wouldn’t play that afternoon, forcing them to dress seven defenders.
You could see that the updated rows weren’t clicking at all. Nobody looked comfortable or had any idea where their teammate might be.
The Blues also made bad passing decisions. In addition to blind backhand passes to the wrong team, the Blues also slaughtered a three-on-one by attempting too many passes close to the goal.
St. Louis seemed like the better team for a while, but their sloppiness gave Seattle way too many looks. Ville Husso saved the blues time and again during the first period.
At some point even his luck ran out. Five minutes before the end of the first stroke, the Kraken struck first.
The second was very similar to the first. Very little is said about Husso and is trusted again.
The Blues won the gunfight in the second period, but it rarely felt like they were close to goal. Despite three power plays in the second third alone, the Blues weren’t much online in terms of high risk opportunities.
Seattle started the third with a partial power play after drawing the second penalty in the final minute. St. Louis killed that and then finally looked like the blues we’re used to.
The blues got some sustained pressure and then tied it. Robert Thomas scored the goal and rammed it from the stick of former Blues defender Vince Dunn to level the game 1-1.
St. Louis maintained its intensity and took another penalty. The fifth time was a charm.
Instead of trying to make 50 passes, the Blues quickly hit the ground and broke the defenses apart. Pavel Buchnevich ended the fast-paced game with a shot from the slot and St. Louis led 2-1 four minutes after the first goal.
Cons: power play
Similar to the Dallas game, a late power play goal made things feel a little better. However, 12 seconds does not delete the previous eight minutes.
With this fifth power play we got what we expect from the blues power play. That’s why it only took 12 seconds to score a goal against a defensively suspicious team.
On the previous four occasions, the blues just looked bad. It was very reminiscent of the passed out power play we’d seen in recent years, rather than the one that was near the top of the league this year.
The blues went so far that even I had to take the side of people who frustratedly shouted “Shoot”. If the blues didn’t pass too much they struggled to win the zone, which becomes more regular if / if the blues don’t win the in-zone face-off.
Not only did they not create many chances, the shots weren’t there either. The Blues only had three hits on their first two power plays, and it wasn’t much better on the second two.
Pros: Husso
For the second straight game, the Blues relied heavily on their goalkeeper to save them. They needed Jordan Binnington to keep them in the game against Dallas until the last minute of the game.
They didn’t rely on Husso until that late point in the Seattle game, but they still needed him to keep them in the game. If it hadn’t been for the Finn, the Blues would have lost 2 or 3-0 at the beginning of the third period. Until then, who knows if the Blues will get enough offensive to tie it.
Not all Seattle looks were from prime real estate, but they did have plenty of Class A chances. Of Seattle’s 32 shots on goal, my guess is that 20 are good-looking and 10-15 made big saves.
Of course, such appearances will only fuel those fans who cannot live without goalkeeping controversy. Instead, maybe we should just be happy to have two quality goalkeepers who can and will win a game, especially since all the national experts cited Husso as the reason the Blues were unlikely to be contenders.
Pros: The next man
We’re all sick of hearing who’s on the protocol list. There are strong arguments that asymptomatic gamers shouldn’t be tested all the time as the word of it seems to have gotten around, vaccination or not.
Regardless of our own personal beliefs on the matter, you must be impressed with the blues ability to continually grow and fill the void. It might not always be nice, but they do the job.
In the aftermath, Bernie Federko made a good point. When you have talented players outside of the line-up, you have to play a more physical game and that is what the Blues did. This wasn’t a playoff style game, but the Blues dug in and checked out.
The Blues played exhausted against Dallas and it was 55 minutes before they were finally together. There were even more players missing against Seattle and that was evident in the first 40 minutes.
As fans, we often demand perfection, regardless of the ambient conditions. We see the Blues play against a team in last place and moan that they don’t dominate.
However, with the constant line changes, the guys just don’t know the intricacies of their teammates that you need to make some of these moves. Once they figured it out they got rolling as we are used to.
overview
This wasn’t the nicest game. If you win, however, you win.
The negatives were there. The quality of the passing game was very poor in the beginning and very poor in terms of frequency in the middle of the game.
We all love Federko in St. Louis, but I’m not sure what game he saw to say the Blues looked great on the second power play. They might have won the gunfight, but they didn’t look like they were going to score at all.
On the positive side, they dug in and stuck in the game until they found their game. After the Blues had their legs under their feet, so to speak, they took over the game and showed their class.
As bad as the power play was at the beginning, we saw why they can be so good. As mentioned earlier, it only took 12 seconds for the Buchnevich Gate to pass.
Praise to the Kraken for taking advantage of the blues miscues early on. In the end it was a fair result and the Blues deserved the win even if they didn’t dominate.