GDT #31: Blues @ Lightning 6:00 CT Bally Sports, 101ESPN

[theohall]

BLUES The St. Louis Blues moved to 2-0-0 since naming Drew Bannister interim head coach, winning an overtime thriller 4-3 against the Dallas Stars on Saturday night. Dallas got off to a 2-0 lead early in the first period, but the Blues battled for a back-and-forth game.

Brandon Saad, Jordan Kyrou and Kevin Hayes scored three straight goals to give the Blues the lead, but Dallas' Evgenii Dadonov tied it up with seven minutes left in the third period. Kyrou, Robert Thomas and Colton Parayko needed only 37 seconds of overtime to end it when Parayko followed up a Kyrou shot to tap in the game winner.

Kyrou had one of his best games of the season, posting three points and nine shots on goal for the second time this season - also reaching both totals on Nov. 9 vs. Montreal.

"(Kyrou) looked like an elite player and he did things the right way," said Bannister. "Offensively, he was dangerous every time he touched the puck. I thought he was outstanding."

The Blues set out for some sunshine this week, traveling to Florida for matchups against the Lightning and Panthers before returning to Enterprise Center for three more games.

They visit the Lightning with a record of 15-14-1, worth 31 points and sixth in the Central Division.

LIGHTNING The Tampa Bay Lightning are continuing to hover around .500 hockey, going 8-7-1 in the 16 games since visiting the Blues on Nov. 14. After two-time Stanley Cup Champion goaltender Andrei Vasilevskiy made his season debut on Nov. 24, the Lightning are gaining confidence with each game he gets back under his belt.

In 10 games this season, Vasilevskiy has an even 5-5-0 record with 3.02 goals-against average, .897 save percentage and already one shutout.

The Lightning are coming off a 2-3-0 road trip to the Northwest which saw an overtime win over Seattle, a big win over Edmonton and regulation losses to Nashville, Vancouver and Calgary. Despite ultimately winning 7-4, Tampa Bay allowed 57 shots on goal by the Oilers - the highest total of any team in the NHL this season. Vasilevskiy made 53 saves in the winning effort, the second highest total of his career and highest by any goaltender this season.

Their most recent game was a 4-2 loss in Calgary. Veterans Brayden Point, Steven Stamkos, Victor Hedman and the red-hot Nikita Kucherov came up just short of a comeback after going down 3-0 early in the second period. Hedman, celebrating his 33rd birthday on Monday, shares 5th in the NHL with 28 points as a defenseman this season.

After Tuesday's matchup, the Bolts end a two-game homestand against Vegas, play a single game in Washington, then return to Amalie Arena for three straight to close out 2023.

The Lightning host the Blues with a record of 14-13-5, worth 33 points and fifth in the Atlantic Division.

HEAD TO HEAD The Blues cruised to a 5-0 win over the Bolts at Enterprise Center on Nov. 14, led by Jordan Kyrou's two goals and Jordan Binnington's 13th career shutout. 6-2-0 against the Eastern Conference this season, the Blues are 6-3-0 in their last nine games against Tampa Bay.

PLAYERS TO WATCH
BLUES Jordan Kyrou, who posted four points, 13 shots on goal and a plus-5 rating over the last two games. Kyrou ranks third on the Blues with 21 points this season, including nine in eight games against Eastern Conference teams.

LIGHTNING Nikita Kucherov, the NHL's point leader with 52 in 31 games as of Monday afternoon. Kucherov has eight points in his last four games, and his scoreless outing in St. Louis was one of just seven such games for him this year.

BLUE NOTES
In the two games since being put on a line together, Robert Thomas, Jordan Kyrou and Pavel Buchnevich have combined for 11 points (four goals, seven assists) and a plus-13 rating. Thomas and Kyrou both recorded an assist on Parayko’s game-winning overtime goal on Saturday vs. Dallas

Brandon Saad has scored goals in three straight games and sits just one game shy of matching his career-long goal streak of four games, which he did from Jan. 3-8, 2023. Saad's goal on Saturday against Dallas - his first power-play goal of the season - was his 100th point as a Blue

Though he is still looking for his first goal, Justin Faulk's 14 assists shares the lead among Blues defensemen and he only trails Torey Krug by a single point

Out of five goals this season (already surpassing his total from last year), Colton Parayko's overtime goal against the Stars was his third game-winner. Parayko now ranks third all-time with 15 game-winning goals as a Blues defenseman. After Robert Bortuzzo was traded on Dec. 8, Parayko became the longest-tenured active Blues player

Jordan Binnington is three games shy of matching Grant Fuhr for No. 4 on the franchise all-time leaderboard in games played as a goaltender

[Portland Blues]

I see the Blues are down 5-0 at the end of the second. I'm guessing "we just didn't get the start we were looking for" tonight.

[theohall]

Blues looked like they were skating in molasses. Bolts looked like it was perfect sheets of ice.

I don't get why Bannister juggled the bottom 2 lines when they were working over the past 2 games. Torp/Hayes/Neighbours looked great, so he mysteriously changed it to McGing/Hayes/Neighbours and Torp/Sunny/MacEachern. Both lines completely sucked and kept leaving other lines in the midst of changes in bad positions. Schenn got hung out to dry repeatedly, by other guys, not necessarily his linemates.

Just a plain bad game, and I thought bad coaching making line changes away from something that worked into something that didn't.

While Binnington did give up 5 - only one of them was remotely on him - and that one was bad puckhandling on his part and the Blues D being really slow (Tucker and Scandella) getting back.