GDT #17: Blues vs Ducks | 7:00 pm CT | BSMW, 101 ESPN

[theohall]

TEAM SNAPSHOTS
BLUES The St. Louis Blues began their three-game homestand in dramatic fashion, winning 5-4 in a six-round shootout over the Washington Capitals on Thursday night.

Pavel Buchnevich and Thomas Greiss sealed the win in the shootout's last round. Buchnevich also scored in the first period, while Greiss made an eye-popping 47 saves.

With 39, 36, 30 and 47 saves across his four starts (163 in his five appearances), Greiss ranks third in the NHL with 32.6 saves per appearance this season (minimum two games played).

"It's no secret, a guy like (Greiss) has been around forever," said Brayden Schenn, who scored the Blues' first goal on Thursday night. "He's a true pro, he works extremely hard... We got some things to clean up defensively, but he stole us the win tonight."

The Blues have now turned a 3-8-0 start into an 8-8-0 record, looking for their sixth straight win when they host the Ducks at Enterprise Center for the first of a two-game set. They now have 16 points on the season, moving into fifth place in the Central Division with Thursday's win.

DUCKS The Anaheim Ducks, the NHL's ninth-youngest team as of opening night, have experienced some growing pains in the early going of the season. Their five wins have all come via overtime or shootout, making them the only team in the League without a regulation win as of Friday afternoon.

They are coming off a loss in Winnipeg, in which Jets forward Kyle Connor broke a 2-2 tie with under a minute remaining to take the lead and tally his third career hat trick.

Young stars Troy Terry and Trevor Zegras scored for Anaheim in the loss, remaining the team's top two point scorers by a substaintial margin. Zegras, after a breakout season last year that featured one of the most unique highlight assists in recent memory, is off to a strong start with 16 points in 17 games at age 21.

Goaltender John Gibson remains a mainstay in Anaheim, currently leading the League in shots faced and total saves. The 2015-16 Jennings Trophy winner ranks third in franchise history in games played and wins in net.

The Ducks are 5-11-1 as they prepare for a two-game set with St. Louis, worth 11 points and eighth place in the Pacific Division.

HEAD-TO-HEAD The Blues went 1-1-1 against the Ducks last season, falling in overtime in their only matchup at Enterprise Center. Their last trip to Anaheim was a 6-3 win, marking Ducks legend Ryan Getzlaf's final game before retirement.

PLAYERS TO WATCH
BLUES Pavel Buchnevich, who is looking to regain some momentum after recovering from an injury earlier this season. Buchnevich has one goal and four assists in his last five games, and recorded two points vs. Anaheim last season.

DUCKS Troy Terry, who leads the Ducks with 20 points on the season. The 25-year-old forward burst onto the scene last year, reaching career highs in goals (37), assists (30) and points (67).

BLUE NOTES
Thomas Greiss' 47 saves vs. Washington shares seventh most in a single game in franchise history... Ryan O'Reilly, who was named the NHLPA Player of the Week on Friday, scored his seventh shootout goal as a Blue - the most by any player since his arrival in St. Louis at the start of the 2018-19 season... Buchnevich's shootout goal was the first of his career (five total attempts)... A win against Anaheim would set a new NHL record for longest win streak following a regulation losing streak of eight games or more, set by Montreal in Februay 2022... The Blues' 20 goals since Nov. 10 lead the League as of Friday afternoon.

After surviving a team-record losing streak, the St. Louis Blues now are thriving and will try to extend their current roll when they host the Anaheim Ducks on Saturday.

The Blues absorbed eight straight regulation losses before reversing course with a five-game winning streak. Now they will face the Ducks twice at home in a span of three days.

St. Louis began its turnaround Nov. 10 with a 5-3 victory over the San Jose Sharks at home. The Blues then took to the road to defeat the Vegas Golden Knights 3-2, the Colorado Avalanche 3-2 and the Chicago Blackhawks 5-2 before coming home Thursday to earn a 5-4 shootout victory over the Washington Capitals.

Blues captain Ryan O'Reilly has four goals and three assists in his last six games after producing just one point in his previous 10 games. Winger Pavel Buchnevich has a goal and four assists in his last five games and he scored the shootout winner Thursday.

"Everybody in the locker room just say keep going, like positive emotion every day," Buchnevich said, according to the St. Louis Post-Dispatch. "Even coming to the practice, everybody smiling and all that stuff.

"But when you're losing like eight in a row, everybody's sad, nobody's smiling. It's kind of tough."

Backup goaltender Thomas Greiss kept the winning streak alive Thursday by making 47 saves in regulation and overtime, then making five stops in the shootout.

Having played the night before in Chicago, the Blues appeared fatigued in the face of Washington's onslaught over the final two periods. St. Louis was unable to protect a 4-2 lead in the third period.

"For me, it boils down to checking and puck battles," Blues coach Craig Berube said. "We got hemmed in our end too much and gave up too many shots. We were a little bit gassed (from being) on the road and coming back."

Another mitigating factor for the poor defensive play was the absence of cornerstone defenseman Colton Parayko, who missed his second straight game with an upper-body injury. Rookie Tyler Tucker played his first two NHL games in Parayko's absence.

The Ducks have just five victories in their first 17 games and none in regulation time. They come into the two-game set at St. Louis with four losses in their last five games and are the only team in the NHL without a regulation victory.

Anaheim played a strong game at Winnipeg on Thursday but lost 3-2 when Jets winger Kyle Connor scored in the final minute to complete his hat trick.

"We played 59 good minutes," Anaheim center Trevor Zegras said. "I make a bad play on the wall and miss my guy going to the front of the net and the game's over. I would say it's kind of on me."

Zegras had scored the game-tying goal at 14:43 of the third period before his defensive lapse.

"He scored a massive goal to get us back in the game at 2-2, but it's a great reminder, especially to all of our younger players, that keeping pucks out of our net is just as important as putting them in their net," Ducks coach Dallas Eakins said.

Zegras has a goal and three assists in his last three games and Adam Henrique has three goals and two assists in a current five-game points streak.

[theohall]

Remember when the Blues were on an 8-game losing streak and shooting barely over 4%? Well, the current 5-game winning streak - they are shooting at 12.6% which is what they did last season. Current league average is 10%. The Blues have climbed from dead last to 25th in Shooting% - up to 9% which is still 1% under the league average, but if they can sustain this shooting rate, which is questionable even though they did it last season, they'll be fine. If they wind up shooting the league average - they become a middle of the road team. They have to maintain a higher than average shooting percentage to keep winning given they way they keep breaking down defensively.

One issue with that shooting percentage - Thomas still can't hit the net - even when he's 1-on-1 with a goalie in a shootout. During this 5-game winning streak he has 1 goal - a goal which he missed the net again since it hit the crossbar and the goalie knocked it in. He didn't even manage 1 shot on net vs Chicago. So that's one player who needs to start performing better when it comes to shooting, especially as a forward playing 19+ minutes per night. If he gets better at that one thing, everyone else gets better around him with the way he's excelled at setting up shots for others (considering he's almost on a point/game pace thanks to his assists). IMO, if he scores a normal goal or two off of a shot that doesn't go off a post or crossbar and off the goalie, he'll start getting goals more regularly than 3 in 16 games - a 15 goals on the season pace doesn't cut it for an $8M player.

Kyrou has picked up his play since he's on a 30 goal, almost point per game pace in spite of his horrendous start.

[glen a richter]

Every 30 seconds the damn feed on ESPN+ says its unable to play the video at the moment.

[glen a richter]

Tucker/Rosen's been steady. I'd love for them to stick but not at the expense of Mikkola. I guess logic dictates when Parayko and Bortuzzo are back Tucker goes down but he's been very solid.

And just after I type it Tucker gets into his first scrap. That's something this team needs for sure, someone who'll throw down to protect Binner. I can only imagine if 75 was on the team last playoffs he would have murdered Kadri.

[theohall]

Trying to watch the the game on replay - the effing game won't even start.

TNT has been just as bad on replays on the DVR with BS freezing and crappy streaming. It's not the home internet when everything else streams just fine. While most everyone bitched about NHL.tv run by the NHL, it worked far better than it has the past 2 seasons since ESPN+ and TNT took over. TNT broadcasts are horrendous on replays. While I despise ESPN in general, I can't really complain about their on-demand availability. The only ESPN stuff that sucks is when the main broadcasts, with their awful annonucers, is calling the game.

Heard the Sens radio crew today of the Devils-Sens game. At one point, the radio crew mentioned how disappointing an effort the Sens had provided 5 minutes into the 3rd. My thought - what a flipping disappointing effort from a clearly blatant radio crew in their effort to actually describe the game. It was a TSN RADIO crew, not a simulcast TV crew which I could forgive for dead air. When a radio crew does the "Player X has his puck behind his net" followed by 5+ seconds of dead air to "Player X pushed the put center ice" with the "Player Y received the puck offsides."

We as Blues fans have no idea how spoiled we are unless your NHL PbP guy is Forslund, Kerber (yes, I counted him, because he calls the game unless the Blues are absolutely sucking when he knows he has to fill air - the Ottawa guy doesn't even fill air), or Ken Daniels (this is a shock with me naming a Detroit announcer, but their prior crews sucked with their overt homerism and refusal to acknowledge own team penalties). Oh.. it's so shocking Jack Edwards wasn't mentioned. While I acknowledge his skill at calling the game for TV or Radio, his blatant homerism eliminates from any consideration in my view as a quality PbP guy. Why would I say this? Can you imagine Edwards ever calling out Bergeron for poor play they way Kelly did O'Reilly when the Blues were losing?? Just saying - Kelly and Panger don't tend to pull punches about their own team. Kerber - kind of between since he's radio and his job is to keep an audience, but he and Vitale almost never do the "dead air" thing I heard today from the Ottawa TSM radio broadcast who had the nerve to say "disappointing effort from the Sens today" when the Sens were down 4-1 to the Devils while my thought was 'disappointing effort from the Sens radio crew who is giving me zero reason to listen to the game' and this was with the Sens starting the 3rd on the power play.

The thing is Kerber, Kelly, Pang, and Vitale do - whether it's radio or tv... the Blues never seem like they are out of the game, unless it's the final minutes and the outcome is obvious. 4-1 to start the 3rd is not out of a game, but the Ottawa announcers were clearly already defeated when the 3rd vs the Devils today started. Lame effort from Canadian announcers who should know better. IOTW TSN Radio Ottawa sucks.

We as Blues fan are incredibly spoiled with the quality of our announcers. I remember when Blues fans slammed on John Kelly, while calling games for the Avs, being a suck-ass announcer. What folks don't realize, he would be as good on radio, I'd argue better, as Kerbs. Kerbs gets caught up in the weeds of side things (I'd say about 20% of the time), while JK, even with weeds around him makes a flipping effort you can hear to still call the game - as if it was a radio broadcast.

What put me on that kick today was hear the NJ-Ott broadcasts via SiriusXM and it was the Sens broadcast. The announcers said 5 minutes into the 3rd, it was a lackluster effort from the Sens. Judging by the broadcasters, before the 3rd period even started, it was a ZERO effort from both the Sens PBP announcer and their color guy considering the 3rd period with the power play had been going on for over 1 minute, before saying JVR has the puck behind his own net. JVR's pass was even less descriptive if you an imagine a team on the PP being that boring. Shortly after the failed PP, the announcers described the game as a less than challenging effort in terms of the Senators play. My immediate response was this game was the ridiculously effortless challenge from the announcers, who clearly conceded the outcome in the first period and chose to "talk about" what they felt was interesting (and not that interesting) instead of calling the game and giving real visuals to those who have to rely on radio. JK still calls games, the majority of the time, as if it's on radio. When he doesn't, it's something significant the producers or Panger bring up. There was zero excuse for the lame ass TSN Radio broadcast of the Sens game today

[theohall]

F)inally watching this game on replay and as bad as the Ducks are, I'm still trying to figure out how the Blues scored 5 with 5 minutes to go in the 2nd period. Other than Buchnevich's PPG with the setup from Thomas, none of the 5 goals stand out.

Anaheim is a defensive disaster.


Anaheim is demonstrating why NO ONE should ever play a zone defense, yet the Blues attempted to implement one to start the season. The only two "new" guys on the Blues staff are McTavish and a video guy, so why did they even bother trying to implement a zone defensive scheme which has NEVER worked in the post lockout era?? This screams of Van Ryn capitulating to Cup experience coaches, without regard to when those particular coaches won the Cup. As soon as the Blues went back to what Van Ryn has ALWAYS coached (yes, his only Cup was from 2019), the Blues went back to winning. As a player, Van Ryn was an aggressive defenseman - not a zone guy - but he played whatever his coach asked of him. I'd bet donuts to dollars this defensive scheme shift is all about MacTavish - which would work 20+ years ago with a Gretzky, Tikkannen, Messier, Coffey roster up front letting the
sorry ass defsense behind them do just enough to let them win games with no one being responsible defensively, including their defenseman - which exacerbates how damn good Fuhr was in that era. Today - zone defenses flat out won't work due to having forwards figure out which guy they have to defend and defenseman having to guess which guy in their zone they should eliminate vice standing next to the net. Zones are passive defense, which is NOT the Blues. Someone might go back years and point at Hitchcock which would be wrong. They weren't passive defensively under him, they were passive in the offensive approach. Thank goodness Berube understands the difference, due to his system not having truly failed. Putting pucks in you own net and shooting at historically low percentage aren't system issue. Those are player effort and execution issues which Armstrong nailed in that press conference. I still won't be surprised if some mega-trade happens - I just have no idea which players will be involved - even thinking of the two obvious ones.

[theohall]

Tonight was 9.3 % shooting night. Against arguably the worst team in the league and the Blues defense showed their ass with their lack of effort. This gam should've been a shutout, but this flipping team hasn't learned how to "play for each other", "be on the right side of the puck", and support the flipping forecheck when it''s there instead of going for a line change. There are too many guys in the bottom half thinking the line change is more important than maintaining o-zone pressure. It only takes one guy to pressure while the next line gets on the ice.]

I am really low on Pitlick of all the bottom six forwards. I know he scored a goal 3 games ago. My issue with Pitlick, he doesn't shoot, he doesn't block shots, he's not a faceoff guy as a winger, and he doesn't hit. What is he truly providing as a 4th line center, because it is 100% not a defensive presence. Were I the GM. Pitlick would be gone with someone filling the same role as a 3rd/4th liner called up to fill the hole Pitlick is not filling.\

Pitlick 11GP 1G, 1A (Okay your a 4th liner who doesn't score). The issue - 11 GP, 15 Hits, 14 Blocks. Those number are way too low for a veteran 2-way forward, since 4th liners are supposed to excel at hits and blocks. There are guys in Springfield who would be as effective for 250K less.

[ComradeT]

Was there with some Russian buddies of mine. Great game. Sat two rows behind Barvbashev's parents. Talked to his dad a bit. A really nice guy. Going again on Monday with my kid. Hope for a repeat.