GDT #35: Blues vs Ducks | 4:00 pm CT | FSMW, 101 ESPN

[theohall]

THE SERIES SO FAR
Jan. 30: Blues 6, Ducks 1
Jordan Kyrou scored 20 seconds in, Zach Sanford followed it up with a goal at the 57-second mark and then Kyrou scored again at 2:06, giving the Blues a new franchise record for the fastest to three goals to begin a game (126 seconds). It was the fastest to the mark in 34 years and fifth fastest all-time in NHL history. David Perron, Kyle Clifford and Vince Dunn also scored in a 6-1 rout at Honda Center.

Jan. 31: Blues 4, Ducks 1
Brayden Schenn scored two goals to increase his point streak to seven games in a 4-1 win against the Anaheim Ducks. Ville Husso made 25 saves to net his first career NHL win, helping the Blues sweep the a two-game set with the Ducks at Honda Center.

March 1: Blues 5, Ducks 4
Zach Sanford had two goals and an assist, Dakota Joshua scored his first career goal in his NHL debut and Ville Husso made 29 saves to help the Blues hold off the Ducks for a 5-4 road win. The Blues improved to 8-2-0 away from Enterprise Center.

March 3: Blues 3, Ducks 2
Brayden Schenn, Oskar Sundqvist and Zach Sanford scored power-play goals for the Blues to help St. Louis to a 3-2 win at Honda Center in Anaheim. Jordan Binnington made 27 saves. The victory gave the Blues their eighth consecutive road win against the Ducks.

March 26: Ducks 4, Blues 1
Offensive struggles for the Blues continued in a 4-1 loss to the Anaheim Ducks. Ryan O'Reilly scored late in the third period to avoid being shutout for the second consecutive game. Anaheim's win was their first against St. Louis since Nov. 16, 2019.

Ducks projected lineup

Max Comtois -- Isac Lundestrom -- Rickard Rakell

Trevor Zegras -- Adam Henrique -- Troy Terry

Derek Grant -- Ryan Getzlaf -- Max Jones

Sam Steel -- Jakob Silfverberg

Cam Fowler -- Jani Hakanpaa

Josh Manson -- Kevin Shattenkirk

Andy Welinski -- Jamie Drysdale

Ben Hutton

John Gibson

Ryan Miller

Scratched: Nicolas Deslauriers, Danton Heinen, Jacob Larsson

Injured: Hampus Lindholm (wrist), Sonny Milano (upper body), Carter Rowney (knee)

COVID-19 protocol: Alexander Volkov

Blues projected lineup

Zach Sanford -- Ryan O'Reilly -- David Perron

Jaden Schwartz -- Brayden Schenn -- Vladimir Tarasenko

Jordan Kyrou -- Robert Thomas -- Mike Hoffman

Kyle Clifford -- Jacob de la Rose -- Tyler Bozak

Torey Krug -- Justin Faulk

Marco Scandella -- Vince Dunn

Niko Mikkola -- Robert Bortuzzo

Jordan Binnington

Ville Husso

Scratched: Sammy Blais

Injured: Colton Parayko (upper body), Ivan Barbashev (ankle), Mackenzie MacEachern (upper body)

Drysdale practiced Saturday and could play after leaving with an upper-body injury in the first period of a 4-1 win at the Blues on Friday after a check by de la Rose. ... The Ducks could dress 11 forwards and seven defenseman for a second straight game. ... St. Louis did not practice Saturday, so any potential lineup changes won't be known until warmups.

[Robb_K]

Tarasenko blasts the puck up into the short side top corner!!!!! Blues lead 2-0!!!!

[Robb_K]

Decent 1st Period for The Blues. Their defence has been better than most recent games. Glad to see Tarasenko hit a hard shot that went into the net.

[gaijin]

Good start. Have to play a full 60, though.

[flyingnote38]

season on the brink

really setting this up to be a huge disappointment

[gaijin]

There is no excuse for that tying goal.

[gaijin]

Nice pressure and flurry of shot attempts there in the last 3 minutes of regulation. And as usual, nothing to show for it.

[gaijin]

So sick of this garbage.

[Robb_K]

This string of games is getting disgusting!

[Portland Blues]

So sick of this garbage.

[glen a richter]

I get that things haven't been particularly normal since last March and injuries, etc... have certainly played a factor this season. However, and I don't say this lightly because for crissake the man coached the team to the first Cup in history, but that said how hot is Berube's seat getting? This team should be scoring way more. The offense is an abomination.

[theohall]

Given the Blues style of play.... benching Hoffman made sense. Even scratching Dunn, whether maintenance day related or not, made sense.

Of all the Blues players, those two, as NHL players, are the flat out least Berube like players on the team. While some might take this as they aren't enough of a "goon", the issue is neither play physical enough and when it comes to Hoffman, the man has no clue what a forecheck or cycle off of a fore check means, based on the video of him playing this season. Hoffman might as well be Patrick frickin' Laine when it comes to doing the dirty work in the offensive zone that is necessary to being a Stanley Cup contender. No Cup contending team can afford to have a guy who won't actively engage in the offensive zone. Look at how drastically Tampa Bay changed their team from 2019 to 2020 and ask yourself where Hoffman should seriously fit on the 2019 Blues or the 2020 Lightning. I might be biased, but he doesn't fit on either, and when this season started, I'd thought Hoffman would fit. His play, however, has proven otherwise, and the twitter guy 2G1C was right when he called it before the season started.'

[gaijin]

I don't know what the answer is, but it seems like Berube is saying all the right things and addressing the problems from the right angles- the players just aren't executing. I don't know how many times over the last couple weeks I've watched Blues have stretches of absolute control in the offensive zone and put unbelievable pressure on the opposing goalie for 2-3 minutes at a time, only to have one player from the other team finally break out, enter the Blues zone alone, deke Binnington once and score.

Again, I don't know how to fix that, but my primary concern centers around Binnington- his overall numbers aren't bad, but he seems to be giving up untimely "big" goals this year that are uncharacteristic for him.

[theohall]

Part of that goaltending thing is the extra pressure on the goalie to be "perfect" every night since the Blues can't seem to score more than 2 goals any more. Fix the scoring and the goaltending will follow.

Tampa had an insanely Blues like game tonight massively outplaying Columbus the majority of the game and losing 3-1 (3rd goal was empty netter). What's nuts - David Savard scored his first goal in 2 years and it's the game-winner. Seriously.