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GDT #36: Blues @ Avs | 8:00 pm CT | BSMW, 101 ESPN
Posted: Fri Apr 02, 2021 2:33 pm
by theohall
Season series presented by Bud Light Seltzer: Tied 1-1
The St. Louis Blues and Colorado Avalanche have not met since going head-to-head with a two-game set to begin the 2020-21 season in January. The teams will meet six times in the month of April.
TEAM SNAPSHOTS
BLUES The Blues will get back to work Friday for back-to-back games against Colorado after having a four-day break.
In their last game on Sunday, St. Louis had a 2-0 lead but the Anaheim Ducks battled back to take a 3-2 win in overtime.
The loss was the Blues' fourth straight.
"I definitely didn't expect us to be in this position," Blues captain Ryan O'Reilly said of the team struggling to find wins. "I know how good we can be and our personnel, how good it is, but this happens. I think none of us expected it, but there's definitely growth to be had. We have to find a way out. The only way we're going to do it is together, and if we don't we obviously won't be where we want to. But it's challenging for every one of us."
As of Thursday, the Blues found themselves holding on to the fourth and final playoff spot in the West Division, just one point ahead of the fifth place Coyotes.
AVALANCHE Joonas Donskoi paced the Colorado Avalanche to a 9-3 rout of the Arizona Coyotes in their last game on Wednesday night at Ball Arena.
Donskoi had a hat trick just 7:31 into the game, recording the fastest hat trick by an Avalanche / Quebec Nordiques player to begin a game.
The Avalanche lead the West Division with 50 points (23-8-4) and have collected points in 12 straight games (10-0-2).
"It's been a good season so far, the last month or five weeks we've really hit our stride once we started getting healthy," Gabriel Landeskog told NHL.com. "We know what kind of team we had, and I think we've shown it over the last five, six weeks. There's still steps we can take. For us, it's important that we keep working, keep trying to achieve first place in the division when the season is over and put ourselves in a good spot for the playoffs."
Mikko Rantanen leads the Avalanche with 43 points (21 goals, 22 assists) in 35 games this season. Nathan MacKinnon has 40 points (10 goals, 30 assists) in 31 games. Goalie Phillip Grubauer leads the League with 22 wins.
THE SERIES SO FAR
Jan. 13: Blues 4, Avalanche 1
Mike Hoffman expected to make his Blues debut but was a last-minute scratch due to his work visa still needing approval. Without Hoffman on the second line, Oskar Sundqvist was promoted and delivered immediately, netting two goals in a 4-1 win on Opening Night. Jordan Kyrou and Kyle Clifford also scored in the victory. Jordan Binnington made 26 saves in his first win of the season.
Jan. 15: Avalanche 8, Blues 0
Colorado scored five times on the power play in an 8-0 rout of the Blues in the second game of the season. Nathan MacKinnon had a goal and two assists, while Gabriel Landeskog scored twice, in an 8-0 Avalanche victory.
BOTTOM LINE: Mikko Rantanen leads Colorado into a matchup against St. Louis. He ranks sixth in the league with 43 points, scoring 21 goals and recording 22 assists.
The Avalanche have gone 23-8-4 against division opponents. Colorado has scored 127 goals and is first in the Nhl averaging 3.6 goals per game. Rantanen leads the team with 21.
The Blues are 16-13-6 against the rest of their division. St. Louis has converted on 18.6% of power-play opportunities, recording 19 power-play goals.
In their last matchup on Jan. 15, Colorado won 8-0. Nathan MacKinnon recorded a team-high 3 points for the Avalanche.
TOP PERFORMERS: Devon Toews leads the Avalanche with a plus-20 in 32 games this season. Gabriel Landeskog has seven goals and 10 assists over the last 10 games for Colorado.
David Perron leads the Blues with 12 goals and has 34 points. Ryan O'Reilly has four goals and five assists over the last 10 games for St. Louis.
LAST 10 GAMES: Avalanche: 8-0-2, averaging 5.3 goals, 9.5 assists, 4.1 penalties and 9.8 penalty minutes while giving up two goals per game with a .922 save percentage.
Blues: 2-5-3, averaging 1.8 goals, 3.2 assists, 2.8 penalties and 7.7 penalty minutes while allowing three goals per game with an .885 save percentage.
INJURIES: Avalanche: Bowen Byram: day to day (head), Matt Calvert: day to day (undisclosed), Dennis Gilbert: out (face).
Blues: Carl Gunnarsson: out for season (lower body), Oskar Sundqvist: out for season (knee).
Re: GDT #36: Blues @ Avs | 8:00 pm CT | BSMW, 101 ESPN
Posted: Fri Apr 02, 2021 2:44 pm
by gaijin
Hopefully their poor recent record and the days off have given the Blues the hunger for a win. The Avs are not just going to roll over.
Re: GDT #36: Blues @ Avs | 8:00 pm CT | BSMW, 101 ESPN
Posted: Fri Apr 02, 2021 7:18 pm
by Robb_K
Re: GDT #36: Blues @ Avs | 8:00 pm CT | BSMW, 101 ESPN
Posted: Fri Apr 02, 2021 8:09 pm
by Robb_K
O'Reilly should have scored on that one!
Re: GDT #36: Blues @ Avs | 8:00 pm CT | BSMW, 101 ESPN
Posted: Fri Apr 02, 2021 8:29 pm
by flyingnote38
bad goal against there
Re: GDT #36: Blues @ Avs | 8:00 pm CT | BSMW, 101 ESPN
Posted: Fri Apr 02, 2021 8:33 pm
by gaijin
Re: GDT #36: Blues @ Avs | 8:00 pm CT | BSMW, 101 ESPN
Posted: Fri Apr 02, 2021 8:41 pm
by Robb_K
Re: GDT #36: Blues @ Avs | 8:00 pm CT | BSMW, 101 ESPN
Posted: Fri Apr 02, 2021 8:47 pm
by Robb_K
The Blues played reasonably decent in The 2nd. But, I'm worried about their getting tired in The 3rd after having to defend on all those PKs. I hope they can keep up their energy all throughout The 3rd.
Re: GDT #36: Blues @ Avs | 8:00 pm CT | BSMW, 101 ESPN
Posted: Fri Apr 02, 2021 9:37 pm
by flyingnote38
game wasn't as close as the score
Re: GDT #36: Blues @ Avs | 8:00 pm CT | BSMW, 101 ESPN
Posted: Fri Apr 02, 2021 9:44 pm
by gaijin
6 points in the last 12 games...
Re: GDT #36: Blues @ Avs | 8:00 pm CT | BSMW, 101 ESPN
Posted: Fri Apr 02, 2021 9:45 pm
by Robb_K
The Blues played with more energy than previous games, but Binnington let in a bad goal, and The Blues, being outskated, gave up too many penalties, plus, the refs added 2 that shouldn't have been. But, the bottom line is that The Blues, somehow have to play better. Unfortunately, they have 16 of the remaining 20 games against the 3 teams ahead of them, so they have few less important games for the previously-injured players to get used to playing with their teammates, and get into a good groove. I think it's not a great bet that they'll make the playoffs.
Re: GDT #36: Blues @ Avs | 8:00 pm CT | BSMW, 101 ESPN
Posted: Fri Apr 02, 2021 10:13 pm
by gaijin
Robb_K wrote: ↑Fri Apr 02, 2021 9:45 pm
The Blues played with more energy than previous games, but Binnington let in a bad goal, and The Blues, being outskated, gave up too many penalties, plus, the refs added 2 that shouldn't have been. But, the bottom line is that The Blues, somehow have to play better. Unfortunately, they have 16 of the remaining 20 games against the 3 teams ahead of them, so they have few less important games for the previously-injured players to get used to playing with their teammates, and get into a good groove. I think it's not a great bet that they'll make the playoffs.
It's not impossible, but they definitely have an uphill climb. The Blues really shot themselves in the foot by playing .500 hockey against the bottom 4 teams in the division. Now this month alone, they have to play Colorado five more times, Vegas twice, Arizona once, and Minnesota six times.
Re: GDT #36: Blues @ Avs | 8:00 pm CT | BSMW, 101 ESPN
Posted: Sat Apr 03, 2021 5:43 am
by theohall
Whatever happened to boxing out on the PK? Both of those PP goals were preventable with more aggressive play from the defenseman in terms of protecting the sides of the net instead of letting guys with the puck walk in front and shoot - multiple times.
Avs PP was better than the Blues in this one.
I don't know what the heck the refs were doing in this one. When Clifford's stick gets slashed out of his hands - by a darn good two hand whack - you can hear the ref say "it isn't broken." Hey, ref, a stick doesn't have to be broken for a slash to have happened. That non-call led to extended zone time for the Avs in the 3rd period. Blues still got 5 PP opportunities, so that's kind of a wash.
The Avs are also doing whatever the heck Vegas figured out to attack the Blues breakouts. Berube and his staff need to figure something out besides the straight up the walls stuff for breakouts, because the two best teams in the division have taken it away. Late in the 3rd, Dunn is behind the net, looking down at the puck, fires it up the boards, then looks up - Surprise - the Avs are already there... Look before you pass when no one is on top of you Vince.... seriously.... small things that add up to bigger problems.
Sanford was particularly awful in this one. Two penalties - both of the idiotic type - and they were penalties. Didn't really hit anyone. Just looked bad - other than the one short-handed pass to Bozak. He's basically a passenger not contributing crap to Thomas and Kyrou. Heck, put Clifford with them.
And one more thing on defending - Barbashev has to still be playing hurt, because he avoided contact repeatedly where normally he would hit the guy with the puck along the wall. He kept turning away and filling a passing lane - which the Avs then didn't use, but just skated down the wall, waited the the dman to come out, then found an open guy down low. It wasn't just Barbashev not taking out Avs when they went got the puck near the top of the circle on the boards. Hoffman, Clifford, Sanford, and Barbashev - all of them - unless they are being coached to just take high passing lanes - which would seem very un-Berube-like.
Need better 60 minute effort especially in aggressively going after whomever is going after the puck when it's on the boards. Avs had way too much freedom in the Blues zone. I get it if that's Rantonen or McKinnon skating by someone, but that only happened a couple of times.
