GDT #21: Blues @ Panthers | 5:30 pm CT | BSMW, 101 ESPN

[theohall]

The Florida Panthers will aim to continue their recent success on the power play Saturday evening when they host the St. Louis Blues.

The Panthers are 11-for-30 on the man advantage over the past eight games for an impressive 36.7 success rate.

Five of those 11 goals have come from Sam Reinhart, who said his team's flow on the power play has improved of late.

"It hasn't been as structured," Reinhart said of the power play. "We're not so worried about finding our spots. (Instead), we're attacking and reading off each other, and it's been working."

Reinhart led the Panthers last season with 16 power-play goals.

This season, Reinhart (five) and captain Aleksander Barkov (four) are Florida's leaders in power-play goals. Matthew Tkachuk (seven), Barkov (five), Brandon Montour (five) and defenseman Aaron Ekblad (four) are Florida's leaders in power-play assists.

Overall, Tkachuk leads the Panthers in assists (18) and points (27). He's also on a five-game point streak with four goals and six assists.

Reinhart has four goals and one assist in his past five games.

"Those are two guys with incredible hands," Panthers coach Paul Maurice said of Tkachuk and Reinhart. "They can create chaos."

Meanwhile, St. Louis has been a team of streaks this season.

The Blues started this season 3-0-0 before losing eight in a row. Then, the Blues won seven straight before losing two in a row, including Friday's 5-2 defeat at the Tampa Bay Lightning.

Winger Pavel Buchnevich has been the Blues' hottest player over the past nine games, producing five goals and eight assists.

Jordan Kyrou, who scored on Friday, leads the Blues with seven goals. Buchnevich, who had one goal and one assist on Friday, is tied with Brayden Schenn in goals with six.

"Our mindset going in there is that we can't take our foot off the gas," Schenn said when asked about the Panthers.

Blues winger Noel Acciari, who has five goals and four assists, is set to face the Panthers for the first time since leaving the franchise following last season.

Acciari spent three seasons with the Panthers, scoring a career-high 20 goals there in the 2019-2020 season.

"I'm excited to see him before and after the game," Panthers winger Ryan Lomberg said of Acciari, who had consecutive hat tricks during that breakout season. "He's a heck of a competitor. It'll be good to battle against him."

It will be interesting to see if St. Louis goes with goalie Jordan Binnington, who has started eight of the past nine games, including the loss at Tampa Bay on Friday.

Binnington is 9-7-0 with a 3.05 goals-against average this season, while backup Thomas Greiss 1-3-0 with a 3.76 GAA.

The Panthers have a goalie duo of Sergei Bobrovsky (4-5-1, 3.62 GAA) and Spencer Knight (6-3-1, 2.39).

Last season, the Blues and Panthers split two games. Host Florida won 4-3 in a shootout on Dec. 4 before St. Louis returned home three nights later and recorded a 4-3 victory on Buchnevich's overtime goal.

[theohall]

Not confident they will pull their heads out of their butts with the way they've played the last few games and with Greiss in net.

[Portland Blues]

8 minutes into the game and we're down 3-0. Got 'em right where we want 'em!

[Portland Blues]

Wow...didn't listen to the game but what the heck happened there?

[JCShutout]

Down 4-1 over halfway and win in ot. This team is (Franking) weird.

I have a feeling it’s going to be up and down all year until army figures out the missing piece. (Either by addition and/or subtraction)

[theohall]

Just watching this one 9 minutes in and seeing the Blues sucking in what are obvious ways.

Turning away from checks after turnovers, horrible passing, Greiss giving up rebound after rebound, Blues not hitting anyone in front of the net or ever tying up any opposition sticks. Just going to have to stick this one out, apparently. Not knowing the outcome, I would turn it off, that is how bad they look.

At this point of the game, Acciari is the only one playing the way Berube usually demands.

The only other thing at this point, the Blues body language has been awful - Krug in particular.

And while typing this - Leivo makes a great play to the net just throwing it in front with Saad going to the net who buries it after a deflection off skate and rebound. That's the kind of play the Blues haven't done enough - just throw it at the net and let someone go there, instead of always trying to force the "quality" shot.

[theohall]

So... Panthers dominate first half of the 1st period, but the Blues controlled most of the play in the 2nd half of the 1st period.

2nd period - even starting the period on the power play and getting 2 more full power plays through 13 minutes of the 2nd - the Blues only managed 1 shot on goal in those 13 minutes. Florida is just doing everything right, while the Blues can't pass, can't get into the offensive zone without turning the puck over, and wind up with any shot attempts being blocked, but they are mostly really weak shot attempts. No support at all in the offensive zone with the Panthers in entire control of the period. Time to see what happens with the Panthers getting their 4th goal just as a Blues power play expired - as in the puck went into the Blues net as the Panthers player was leaving the box - he hadn't even put his skate on the ice, yet - so it's more of a SHG, but counts as even strength.

[theohall]

Through 2 periods with the score 4-1... I counted maybe 3 good shifts from the Blues - all in the last 5 minutes, one of which included an outstanding backcheck from Kyrou to take away what could've been an easy tap-in off or a cross-ice feed from Tkachuk. But, outshot 15-2 in a period when you had almost 5 minutes of power play time and didn't have to kill any penalties is a crappy effort. Again - if I hadn't known the outcome, that kind of period with that lack of effort is something I don't want to watch. Greiss isn't getting any help.

[theohall]

After Tarasenko drew his 3rd penalty of the game less than 2 minutes into the 3rd, it became clear Schenn wasn't in the lineup when the 2nd PP unit was ROR, Acciari, Leivo, Parayko and Leddy.

With 9 to go in the 3rd, even though the Blues failed to score on their 4th PP, they did score just as 4-on-4 ended with ROR from behind the net banking it off of Knight's far pad to cut the lead to 2. This was followed by a solid Blues PK. Had the Blues played the 1st two periods the way they are playing the 3rd, the score wouldn't likely be 4-2 and the Panthers aren't letting up... the Blues just started playing better. Interestingly, Panthers analyst Randy Moller said these first 5 minutes of the 3rd period could decide this game and the Blues came out the better team in those 5 minutes.

Even with the overall poor play through 2, Tarasenko, Leivo, and Kyrou have looked good through the first 50 minutes. Thomas has been invisible. ROR probably did not like his 1st period, but has improved throughout the game.

[theohall]

And after praising Leivo's play he made a HORRIBLE clearing attempt from the right corner of the Blues d-zone leading to an uncontested breakaway for Lundell. Greiss bailed him out.

This was followed by Kyrou getting a shift with Acciari and scoring a beauty from the right circle off of a stretch pass to spring him. (in other words, Kyrou was a forward getting an extra shift with Schenn out - which Kyrou had earned).

[theohall]

Blues 4th goal was the Panthers actually playing horribly and the Blues taking advantage of it. Leddy made a great decision to carry the puck deep into the zone, since the Panthers didn't even try to defend him until he was about to shoot which opened up the ice for Tarasenko - who eventually gets the game-tying goal.

[theohall]

Blues almost won this game in regulation. Final 2 minutes have been all St Louis. Panthers were fortunate to get a point out of this one with the way they've failed to finish regulation play.

After being outshot 30-10 at one point (and 35-16 during the 3rd), regulation ended with 36 shots on goal for the Blues to 37 for the Panthers. That's how dominant the Blues were in the 3rd period - especially the final 10 minutes.

[theohall]

OT - 1st minute Blues had perfect coverage when the Panthers had possession. Blues get possession. Krug waits behind the Blues net as Tarasenko and Buchnevich leave the ice for Kyrou and I don't know who. Krug makes a perfect aerial stretch pass to Kyrou who knocks it down in full stride at center ice, flies past the lone defender, forehand, backhand, forehand, winner!

[theohall]

This team is either on fire for a given 20 minutes or a dumpster fire for some other 20 minutes. They are like a box of chocolates.