GDT #3: 1/22/13 > Blues @ Hawks > 7:30 PM > FSMW/KMOX

[glen a richter]

DP has me worried too. Stay out of the mf box for crissake! Hitch should tell him, you take one more stupid penalty, you're riding the pine for the rest of the game.

[ZigZagBluesFan]

This should be a hell of a game. The Blackhawks are going to come out flying with this being their home opener so I hope the good guys can match their intensity coming off an OT game last night.

If we can stick with them for the first 10 minutes I think we should be alright.

I like the Blues in another 4-3 shootout winner.

[AlsWoodenStick]

I'm going to be at a concert during the good part of the game so I won't see much. Going with a good buddy who had the curse of being born in Chicago, so we have a pitcher bet on each game . Not feeling good about this one, for some reason. Hawks win 4-2. Hossa scores 2, Vladdy gets a point & Backes gets a goal to start his ramp.

[Krigloch the Furious]

Have to come out hitting.
I think Oshie and Backes will be huge in this game.
Sobotka also

Polak smashes someones face in.

[sseagle]

(Frank) THE BLACKHAWKS
(Frank) DIRECTV, My receiver is downloading an update and keeps failing...

[sseagle]

OK, that is remedied... lets GO BLUES

[fargoblues]

Sounds like the Blues will have some Apostrophe Power in the lineup today...

Also, random: With Colaiocovo out with a shoulder injury, the Wangs signed....


...


.....


Kent Huskins

[SamJunior]

Russell is a complete disaster tonight.

And that new interference rule is just BS, annoying as (Frank)!

[theohall]

This has been horrible officiating.

The new interference rule - the defender is supposed to be allowed a bump and let go. Shatty did that last night - got penalized. Cole did that - got penalized. Both were horrible calls and completely wrong - even under the new rule.

The trip on Tarasenko - he was on the ice playing the puck. It's not his fault the other guy tripped over Tarasenko's hands while Tarasenko was playing the puck. Horrible call.

The "holding" on MacDonald??? Rigggghhhttt....

Also - they are supposed to be calling unsportsmanlike conduct for facewashes (Jackman did it) and snowing the goalie (Hawks did it). No calls, though.

Forgot to add - Stewart SUCKS!!! Still. How hard is it to fire a puck deep into a zone against two defensemen without hitting one of the defenseman?????

[Nyghtewynd]

Good comeback, game decided by a bad call...but you're still two points back in the division now. Underscores how huge every division game is in a short season.

[APOD]

We win some we lose some

74 is back looked good last game and tonight.

We got robbed on the 1st pp that was a bad whistle, puck was live and would have been in the net with in seconds.

new interference rule sucks, esp when you get called for it with out even touching the player might as well call it 2 min for intimidation.

57 stayed out of the box, but still didn't look as good as he should

Don't be mad at 25, he hustled all game, the hawks were on the puck all night everyone had a problem there.

Crawford was on fire tonight gave up very few playable rebounds.

Horrible officiating was a understatement I saw 2 bad holds, a nasty high stick and a few other things that should have been called on the hawks and a few things we should have been called on us.

Good rally in the third wish we could have tied it.

Hawks will give us trouble all year we will see how that ends up.

Ohhh and I think I chose the right guy to sponsor

[STLADOGG]

Our D was garbage today.

[cprice12]

Sloppy game by the Note.
Lots of giveaways and Chicago was flying...bad combo. Bad passes, passing going off Hawk players, mistakes on defense leading to 387 odd man rushes in the first period...frustrating.

A couple horrible calls again. The refs are completely butchering the new interference rules. Two horrible, horrible calls in back to back games. Awful. Someone needs to smack the refs in the face and remind them how they are supposed to be calling those plays.

Bad calls aside, if we had played better during the first 45 minutes, we'd have been ok. We didn't really start to pressure until Chicago backed off and concentrated on defense.

All in all, we played a pretty sub-par game...and were still damn close to tying it up in the final minutes. Not sure if it was fatigue or just a bad game. Whatever it was...it sucked.

Perron stole a golden one timer chance from Petro on the last faceoff with 7 seconds to go. The faceoff was won back to Petro but before the puck got there, Perron reaches out and grabs the puck while Petro is winding up...and he takes a wrist shot and is poke checked as he shoots and it goes into the corner. What the hell? He seemed to be stealing pucks from everyone tonight. Have a little hockey sense there David. Know where your teammates are. That was just stupid.

[ohio BLUES]

Perron stole a golden one timer chance from Petro on the last faceoff with 7 seconds to go. The faceoff was won back to Petro but before the puck got there, Perron reaches out and grabs the puck while Petro is winding up...and he takes a wrist shot and is poke checked as he shoots and it goes into the corner. What the hell? He seemed to be stealing pucks from everyone tonight. Have a little hockey sense there David. Know where your teammates are. That was just stupid.

That was frustrating. What did DP do during the break? Couldn't have been playing at any significant level, judging by his present form.

[dmiles2186]

Frustrating loss. On one hand, you could tell the Hawks were a half step ahead of the Blues and at times, the Blues looked fatigued. On the other, to see the Blues come on strong late was encouraging. Just a case of 'too little, too late.' Elliott was the main reason this game didn't get out of control, even though a few of the goals he let in were soft. Still, he made several saves that kept the game in reach, so I take that with a grain of salt.

They get a day and then have Nashville at home. Another tough matchup, but hopefully the extra day will get them back up to top speed.

[DaDitka]

IMO, we've played one 'ok' game and two really sloppy ones and we have two wins and a one goal loss against tree division opponents......I think I can live with that.

However, it's time to clean it up. I think we've played too 'free' in all three games. We need to be more careful with the puck, we need be more responsible on our own end, and we need to play with a little more control. No big deal.....these guys wouldn't even usually be playing for real this early...but with the shorten season it's critical that they don't let it become an issue.

[theohall]

About being more careful... Just before the 3 on 0 break, the Blues had a 5 on 2 man advantage going into the Hawks zone because they had caught the Hawks in a bad change. All it would have taken was not trying to force the puck through one of the only 2 defenders in the Hawks zone, yet inexplicably that is exactly what Stewart tried to do. Talk about throwing away a golden opportunity - that was a big one - especially with how that one mistake turned a significant edge into a humiliating bad goal.

[Oaklandblue]

I think we need to put things into a bit better perspective.

Game 1: Detroit. Lame duck. We tore them up.
Game 2: Nashville. Screwed ourselves over on lousy plays that costed goals. Lucky we won.
Game 3: Chicago. See game 2, except we lost.

I would personally judge us from the last 2 games than the first. We're playing sloppy, DP needs to be benched and straighted out and more effort needs to be given to protect our netminders. We screwed Halak over in Nashville and Elliott was left to dry in Chitown. That's unacceptable.

Refs will always hate us in Chitown and other places, nothing we can do about that, but there's alot we can do about the rest and I'm sure Hitch is on their tails straightening this out.

[DaDitka]

I would personally judge us from the last 2 games than the first. We're playing sloppy, DP needs to be benched and straighted out and more effort needs to be given to protect our netminders.

This is exactly how I saw it.

We were actually talking after the opener about how if we tried to play like that against an actual opponent that showed up for the game, we were going to be in trouble.

The most concerning part to me is this looks like the complete polar opposite of the Hitchcock hockey that we had so much success with last year. Sure, there is still some decent forechecking by some of our forwards, but the (lack of) back checking and carelessness with the puck is sickening.

Again...it's early...but we just had a day off and we're back home. I expect them to play much better tonight.

[theohall]

I would personally judge us from the last 2 games than the first. We're playing sloppy, DP needs to be benched and straighted out and more effort needs to be given to protect our netminders.

This is exactly how I saw it.

We were actually talking after the opener about how if we tried to play like that against an actual opponent that showed up for the game, we were going to be in trouble.

The most concerning part to me is this looks like the complete polar opposite of the Hitchcock hockey that we had so much success with last year. Sure, there is still some decent forechecking by some of our forwards, but the (lack of) back checking and carelessness with the puck is sickening.

Again...it's early...but we just had a day off and we're back home. I expect them to play much better tonight.

We also have to remember there were no exhibition games to work out the kinks and only a week of practice before these games started. The Blues do have an advantage and that almost the entire team from last season is still together, which will show against weaker opponents.