GDT #19: Blues vs Kings | 7:00 pm CT | NHLN, FSMW, 101 ESPN

[theohall]

Los Angeles Kings (7-6-3, fifth in the West Division) vs. St. Louis Blues (10-6-2, first in the West Division)

BOTTOM LINE: Los Angeles aims to keep its four-game win streak alive when the Kings take on St. Louis.

The Blues are 10-6-2 against the rest of their division. St. Louis averages 9.1 penalty minutes per game, the ninth-most in the Nhl. Justin Faulk leads the team serving 13 total minutes.

The Kings are 7-6-3 against West Division opponents. Los Angeles has given up nine power-play goals, stopping 83% of opponent opportunities.

Los Angeles defeated St. Louis 6-3 in the last meeting between these teams on Jan. 24.

TOP PERFORMERS: Brayden Schenn leads the Blues with nine goals, adding seven assists and totaling 16 points. David Perron has nine assists over the last 10 games for St. Louis.

Anze Kopitar has 21 total points while scoring four goals and totaling 17 assists for the Kings. Dustin Brown has six goals over the last 10 games for Los Angeles.

LAST 10 GAMES: Blues: 5-4-1, averaging 3.1 goals, 5.6 assists, 3.2 penalties and seven penalty minutes while giving up 2.5 goals per game with a .908 save percentage.

Kings: 5-4-1, averaging three goals, 5.4 assists, 3.2 penalties and seven penalty minutes while allowing 2.6 goals per game with a .918 save percentage.

INJURIES: Blues: Colton Parayko: day to day (undisclosed), Jaden Schwartz: day to day (lower body), Robert Thomas: out (thumb).

Kings: Jaret Anderson-Dolan: out (upper body).

Missing Injuries: Barbashev, Bozak, and Tarasenko. For some reason, ESPN ignores LTIR.

[theohall]

[gaijin]

Damn, I had forgotten exactly how much we were missing: Tarasenko, Bozak, Thomas, Schwartz, Parayko, Barbashev. With the shortened season, the injuries really make a larger-than-usual impact.

Let's get back in the W column.

[Robb_K]

Two super saves by Binnington before this TV timeout. He's been playing well. The Blues are getting all they can handle by The Kings' active forecheck.

[ibldbl]

Binner stops several before the goal against. That one is not on him. Nobody boxing anyone out there

[Robb_K]

The Blues were on their heels for too much of The 1st Period. they'll need to come out skating harder. Some of the substitutes for the injured players may be tired from playing a lot more than their usual minutes over the last few injury-plagued weeks for The Blues.

[Portland Blues]

Looks like another injury. Not going to have enough players to finish the season at this rate.

[Portland Blues]

Terrible giveaway led to that one.

[theohall]

The bad gap control has creeped back into the Blues system over the past couple of games. Even the ROR/Perron/Kyrou line is doing this. 3 forwards waiting at the offensive blueline for defenseman who are at the top of their own circles to pass to those non-skating forwards. Being down a defenseman is going to make that a bigger issue than it would normally be. Three forwards can't wait at the offensive blueline for defenseman to pass the puck 80 feet to them, like they've been doing, and asking tired d-men to skate the puck out of the zone, while the forwards are stationary at the offensive blueline, is a recipe for disaster. When the Blues are on their game, there is almost always one forward helping the defense move the puck up ice and usually only one forward cherry picking at the offensive blueline. Right now, it's darn near every forward cherry picking - even Sundqvist who is usually known for not doing that.

Seriously - in the 3rd period - watch how all 3 forwards disappear from the screen when the defense has clear control.

[theohall]

And the forwards behaved in the 3rd, but that's too little too late.

It's really nice knowing 8 of your 18 starting skaters are out injured, 2 of them are top 6 (Tank, Schwartz), one will eventually be top 6 (Thomas), and the other is arguably your best defensive defenseman when healthy.

[Robb_K]

This game was sad to watch. The Blues were on their heels most of the game, and playing in their own zone for most of the game. The Blues had lots of trouble getting the puck up ice. They couldn't complete passes, couldn't keeop the puck on their sticks, were almost always a stride or two behind, and lost almost all the races to the puck. They looked exhausted and mentally defeated after their early game solid forecheck was stopped by a bounceback of The Kings, with THEIR own smothering forecheck. It looked like The Blues lost heart and gave up until there were only 5 minutes left. It looks to me like The Blues are physically and mentally exhausted (maybe due to their best players having played too many minutes lately, due to the team's many injuries. I hope they can get energised next game.

[gaijin]

And the Blues offense goes anemic again. To be fair, they did get several chances, but Quick did what Quick always does to the Blues.

And seriously, what is wrong with the Power Play?

*edit: Another terrible game for a terrible jersey. What's our record with these things so far? 0-2?

[theohall]

Yes, 0-2 in the St Louis Reds jerseys. Those are supposedly done for the season. Only two RR games were scheduled as of Feb 4th.

The 1st unit power play issues - adjusting to a left-handed QB, adding a right-side one timer in Hoffman (remember Perron was scoring from the left side and they had Tarasenko playing in Perron's spot when Tank played last season). Hoffman isn't a passer and Perron would get chances off of the royal road pass from the RW all the way across on occasion when the Blues had collapsed the box. IMO, the PP is a consequence of adjusting to new players who weren't part of the team at all last season.

The bigger issue is forwards playing a 60 minute game supporting the defense in moving the puck up ice and not taking breaks for half the damn game while cherry picking off of line changes. That's happened ALOT in the past 3 games. 3rd period was one of the few periods I've seen when the forwards made a concentrated effort off of line changes to support the D in getting the puck up ice. We'll see what happens Wednesday. Bottom line is the forwards need to play a 200' game, instead of the half-ice game they've been playing. Sanford needs to have his butt healthy scratched with the way he keeps getting caught making bad passes in the d-zone, knocked on his butt in the d-zone, or flat out on the wrong side of the puck in the d-zone, but there are too many injuries for that to work.