GDT #43: Blues vs Flames | 7:00 pm CT | BSMW, 101 ESPN
Posted: Thu Jan 27, 2022 7:14 am
The St. Louis Blues will get a chance to avenge a lopsided loss to the Calgary Flames on Monday when the teams meet again at Enterprise Center for the second game of a home-and-home on Thursday night.
On Monday, the Blues surrendered seven goals in an uncharacteristic 7-1 loss at the Scotiabank Saddledome. St. Louis native Matthew Tkachuk had a career-high five assists while Johnny Gaudreau had a goal and three assists.
"We knew they were going to start aggressive and hard," Ryan O'Reilly said. "They're a very good team with a lot of skill that plays hard. Just right from the get-go, we were kind of on our heels and just kind of watching. Against a team like that, you just can't do that. They took over the game. They dominated us from start to finish. That's not us. That's not our brand of hockey. That's not Blues hockey."
"We have to play them again here right away," Head Coach Craig Berube said. "We're going to take some stuff out of this, learn from it, and move on and play a better game the next time we play them."
The Blues will play two more games at home before getting an extended All-Star break. After Thursday's matchup against the Flames, the Blues host the Winnipeg Jets on Saturday afternoon.
PLAYERS TO WATCH
BLUES Tyler Bozak, who is set to appear in his 800th regular-season game. Bozak scored the Blues' lone goal on Monday and has played 205 games with the Blues since joining as a free agent in 2018. Prior to signing with St. Louis, he played 594 games with the Toronto Maple Leafs over nine seasons. Bozak is the third active undrafted player to reach 800 games, joining Seattle's Mark Giordano and the New York Islanders' Andy Greene.
FLAMES Johnny Gaudreau, who leads the Flames with 48 points (16 goals, 32 assists) this season. In his last five games, Gaudreau has a whopping 11 points (two goals, nine assists).
The St. Louis Blues will try to avenge a blowout loss at Calgary three days earlier when they host the Flames on Thursday.
The Flames outshot the Blues 48-21 in their 7-1 victory over the Blues on Monday, but Calgary was just getting warmed up in that category.
In a 6-0 road win over the Columbus Blue Jackets on Wednesday, the Flames fired 62 shots on net, a franchise record and the highest total in a regulation NHL game since March 1989.
"If you're taking that many shots, which doesn't happen very often, I'm going to bet there was a lot of high quality in that tonight," Calgary coach Darryl Sutter said. "I think that we've had in the 40s and even in Edmonton a couple games ago there we probably had as many good opportunities and just didn't score. So we have to stay the course with how we have to play."
The Flames have won three of four games since snapping a four-game losing streak.
Calgary winger Matthew Tkachuk, who grew up in St. Louis, earned five assists against the Blues on Monday, then added two goals Wednesday at Columbus. He has nine goals and 13 assists in his past 11 games with the Flames' top line dominating.
Sutter was glad to see Andrew Mangiapane score his first goal since Dec. 30 and Mikael Backlund net his first since Nov. 21 to give the team more offensive balance against the Blue Jackets.
"After the second period, we had three different lines score, which is critical for this team to win hockey games," Sutter said. "You can get by every once in a while with just special teams or one line. ... We need something out of everybody."
Calgary's Jacob Markstrom earned the shutout on Wednesday, so the Flames seem likely to come back with Dan Vladar (5-3-1, 2.73 goals-against average, .910 save percentage) against the Blues.
Even before the Flames' latest offensive salvo, the Blues knew they were in for a tough rematch.
"We have to learn from (the Monday loss) and just come out angry," St. Louis forward Robert Thomas said. "That's all we can do about it now."
The Blues played Sunday, winning 3-1 at Vancouver, but coach Craig Berube refused to accept the back-to-back games as an excuse for what happened Monday.
"You can't go into a game like that against any team, but let alone Calgary, who's a very good hockey team," Berube said. "They play a man's game. It's gonna be a tough hockey game. We just didn't compete and we didn't skate. All we did was we defended the whole night basically, but we didn't do a very good job of defending either. You can't play the game that way.
"You've got to move on from it, but at the same time we got to learn from it. Whether you're tired or not going into the game -- and there's a lot of times you're not going to have the best energy that's needed -- you gotta battle through it, you gotta have a simple mindset in the game. It comes down to digging in and competing."
Before losing at Calgary, the Blues had won eight of 10 games coming out of the holiday break. They have excelled at home all season, going 16-4-2 on their own ice.
Blues goaltender Jordan Binnington allowed all seven goals in two periods against the Flames. Ville Husso (8-2-1, 1.88 GAA, .943 save percentage) stopped all 13 shots he faced in relief, so he seems likely to start against the Flames this time.
