It was a pretty good sign for the Blues that Colorado captain Gabriel Landeskog’s postgame comments had to be censored Monday night.
“Our first period was dogshit,” Landeskog said. “Pardon my language, but I don’t know how else to explain it.”
The Blues led 2-0 after the Avalanche’s poopy first period and won the game, 4-1, for back-to-back wins over the Avs.
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Craig Berube’s club scored four times on 20 shots, the power play netted a goal for the seventh straight game, and a patched-up defensive lineup kept Colorado under two goals for only the fifth time this season.
“I thought the whole team was pretty engaged all night and played a solid game,” Berube said.
Suddenly, the Blues have won five of their past eight games, and the wins are over playoff teams Colorado (two), Minnesota (two) and Vegas (one). With Arizona losing to San Jose on Monday, St. Louis is back in fourth place in points in the West Division with three games in hand.
Give the Blues credit: For all of those who have wondered recently whether any of the teams in the battle for the final playoff spot in the division even wanted it, they have shown they do.
“I really get this feeling that we can play against any team when we do the right things like we did tonight,” Blues forward David Perron said. “That’s what’s truly special about our group. We’ve still got that quiet confidence that … things are going to click in the end.”
What’s changed? And more important, can it continue?
Here’s a look at five things the Blues have been doing differently in the past two games and how they helped in the two wins:
1. Changing the lines, shifting Schenn to wing
After a 4-2 loss to Colorado in the first game of the three-game set, Berube mixed up his line combinations, moving Brayden Schenn to left wing on a line with Perron and Ryan O’Reilly. It was O’Reilly who willed the Blues to a 5-3 win Saturday, but it was Schenn’s work on the forecheck that helped O’Reilly score the first of his three goals in the come-from-behind victory.
On Monday, it was Schenn’s turn. He scored his 14th goal of the season to end a 19-game scoring drought.
“Everyone goes through slumps, ups and downs,” Schenn said. “Maybe I haven’t had one that long, (but) you’ve got to keep fighting through it, and eventually it will come. So it’s nice to get the monkey off the back and get it going offensively.”
🚀 #stlblues pic.twitter.com/UsgevqyVj4
— St. Louis Blues (@StLouisBlues) April 26, 2021
Perron assisted on Schenn’s goal and finished with three points, including his first goal in 10 games.
“I wasn’t happy with my last couple games,” he said. “It’s nice to bring results.”
Tyler Bozak was bumped to the second line, centering Vladimir Tarasenko and Jaden Schwartz. Bozak played 22:09 on Monday — the most of any Blues forward — and seems to be bringing out the best in Tarasenko, who’s been way more noticeable the past two games. He had five shots on goal Saturday and three hits Monday.
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The line that stood out Monday, though, was Ivan Barbashev, Robert Thomas and Jordan Kyrou. In 10:55 of ice time at five-on-five, they had six scoring chances for and just one against. Thomas, who recently returned to the lineup after a shoulder injury, scored his second goal of the season.
“I thought the Thomas line had a real good game,” Berube said. “They had the puck a lot. Tommer ended up scoring finally. He had a couple breakaways in the game, too, and didn’t capitalize on them, but he stayed with it and got a nice goal there.”
Meanwhile, because the Blues played the two games with seven defensemen and only 11 forwards — more on that soon — they had Sammy Blais and Mike Hoffman on the fourth line and rotated their centers between those two wingers.
It seems the team is getting the best of both worlds from its perspective: keeping Hoffman in the lineup for his offense, particularly on the power play, but limiting his five-on-five ice time. He had 8:16 of even-strength ice time Saturday (the lowest of any player) and 9:38 on Monday (second lowest).
Here’s a look at the new lines:
| Forwards | ||
|---|---|---|
Brayden Schenn | Ryan O'Reilly | David Perron |
Jaden Schwartz | Tyler Bozak | Vladimir Tarasenko |
Ivan Barbashev | Robert Thomas | Jordan Kyrou |
Sammy Blais | N/A | Mike Hoffman |
Two things are happening here:
No. 1, there seems to be some chemistry being created, and the changes appear to have gotten the top forwards going, which is desperately needed.
From March 13 until April 24, the stretch prior to Saturday’s win over Colorado, the Blues played 17 games and scored a total of 52 goals. That’s an average of 2.24 goals per game, which was No. 28 in the league in that span, and let’s not forget that nine of those 52 goals came in a 9-1 win over Minnesota on April 9.
The Blues need guys like Schenn, Perron and Tarasenko contributing, and if Thomas is can, too, even better.
“We’re the guys who get put in offensive situations, guys who play a lot of minutes, guys that are expected to score,” Schenn said. “The four that you mentioned, getting on the board, it’s going to help confidence and help us go a little bit.”
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“It’s great to see them get the puck to go in for them,” Berube said. “We need those guys to produce. They know that. That’s what they’re paid to do. It bothers them that they’ve been in droughts for a while, and they’re proud guys. They take it personally, so it’s good to see them get rewarded.”
No. 2, by putting Schenn on the left wing on O’Reilly’s line, the Blues have a solid defensive group that, if it can contain Nathan MacKinnon’s unit five-on-five, can play against any line in the NHL.
Blais played well offensively on the O’Reilly line, and he can hit, but Schenn is more responsible defensively.
In the two Blues’ wins over the Avs, O’Reilly’s line was on the ice against MacKinnon’s line for 11:09 at five-on-five and outscored that group 2-0. MacKinnon did have two goals in those games, but those came on the power play. In fact, of MacKinnon’s six goals and 14 points against the Blues in the eight-game season series, four of the goals and eight of the points came on the man advantage.
“We got the matchup the past couple of games and, with O’Reilly, he’s so easy to play with,” Schenn said. “Obviously, they’re missing (Mikko Rantanen), who already has 25 goals, so maybe it’s a bit different when they have him on the right wing. But at the end of the day, you’ve still got good players on that line. It was nice to shut them down a little bit.”
If Berube can afford to keep Schenn on the wing and keep this unit together, that will bode well against teams like Minnesota and its top line of Kirill Kaprizov, Victor Rask and Mats Zuccarello. The Kaprizov-Zuccarello duo has combined for 32 goals and 70 points this season.
2. Hoffman on PP1, Tarasenko net-front
It’s been one of the biggest mysteries of the season: Why Hoffman hasn’t had more power-play time, and why he’s been relegated to the No. 2 unit.
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Well, that has changed.
In the third period Saturday, with 10:18 remaining and the score 3-3, the Blues went on a power play and it was Hoffman who went out with the No. 1 unit of O’Reilly, Schenn, Perron and Torey Krug. With 31 seconds left in the five-on-four, the Avalanche took another penalty, putting the Blues on a five-on-three, and Hoffman scored what would be the winning goal.
THAT. WAS. AWESOME. #stlblues pic.twitter.com/mt1vaqnvDX
— St. Louis Blues (@StLouisBlues) April 24, 2021
That was the Blues’ first five-on-three goal in the regular season since 2016, and it was Hoffman’s fourth PP goal of the season, ranking second on the team behind Perron.
On Monday, Hoffman remained on the top unit and set up Tarasenko for the team’s first goal and a 1-0 lead.
Take a look at Hoffman’s pass to Krug, a rare successful seam pass for the Blues, setting up the goal.
That was Hoffman’s seventh assist on the power play this season, placing him second on the team in PP points with 11, ahead of such players as O’Reilly and Krug, who are averaging almost a minute more of ice time per game on the man advantage.
Hoffman is averaging just 1:57 per game, which ranks seventh on the team and sixth among forwards.
Now go back and look at the last two videos and see who’s standing in front of the net, and you’ll see the other adjustment that’s been made.
Tarasenko, who has played on the wall and the point on the power play throughout this career, is now the one lurking above the crease. That’s how he scored his PP goal in the first period Monday.
Vladi made quick work of that power play.
Only needed 7 seconds. #stlblues pic.twitter.com/wqFPLrTJaw
— St. Louis Blues (@StLouisBlues) April 26, 2021
At five-on-five, Tarasenko has been playing on the perimeter a lot this season, and Berube told the right winger he wanted him to get his nose dirty. That chat didn’t seem to resonate, though, as Tarasenko was continuing to play on the outside.
Putting him in front on the power play is a move that almost seems like the Blues are forcing Tarasenko to get engaged. And it looks like it might work.
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“He’s a big body, and he’s got good hands around the net,” Berube said. “For me, it’s about him getting inside and being around the net a little bit more, and that’s what’s going to happen. He’s a smart guy around there. He knows where to go and what to do, and if you look at … all the top power-play scorers in the league, they’re at the net-front or in the slot.
“There’s a couple guys — (Washington’s Alexander) Ovechkin, to name one that’s on the flank — are on top of the league in scoring. But guys that score goals on the power play are (usually) around the net.”
The power play has now scored in seven consecutive games and is 8-for-21 in that stretch (38.1 percent), which is second in the league in that span behind Minnesota (39.1).
3. Sitting Sanford, going 11-7
Zach Sanford will be back in the lineup at some point, and he should be. He had a costly turnover, and it wasn’t the first, but he also has the sixth-most goals on the team (nine) and contributes on both special teams.
As Berube said, Sanford needed a break, so he made him a healthy scratch.
“I just talked to him about taking a reset here, watching a game, and we’ll go from there,” Berube said after the 5-3 victory Saturday.
With the win, it turned into two healthy scratches for Sanford, including Monday’s game.
As we know, the Blues didn’t replace Sanford in the lineup with a forward. The staff elected to play with only 11 forwards and add a seventh defenseman.
That came in handy Saturday when Colton Parayko and Vince Dunn left the game with upper-body injuries. With Parayko and Dunn unavailable Monday, the Blues stuck with the 11-7 roster, putting Niko Mikkola and Steven Santini in the lineup. Santini saw just 5:55 of ice time, but every little bit helped, and despite it being his first game since November 2019, he was pretty serviceable, with two shots on goal and two hits.
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“There wasn’t a lot of minutes for Santini, but he hadn’t played in a long time, and I thought he did a good job,” Berube said. “He skated the puck and he did the right things with it. He was good defensively.”
The Blues may be going back to 12-6 for Wednesday’s game, though, for a couple of reasons.
First, the good news is Parayko skated Tuesday and Berube said there’s a good chance he could play against the Wild on Wednesday. Second, with back-to-back games Wednesday and Thursday — not to mention 10 games in the final 16 days of the regular season — Berube doesn’t want to overtax his top players.
“It might be a little tough,” Berube said. “My minutes get up a little bit on the front end. Bozak played 22 (Monday), and that’s a lot of minutes for him. We’ll see how it looks, and we’ll make a decision.”
4. Getting shots to the net
When the Avalanche beat the Blues 4-2 last Thursday, the Avs blocked 27 of the Blues’ shot attempts. There were five Blues players who saw at least three of their shots knocked down before they got to the net: Tarasenko, Krug, Dunn, Justin Faulk and Jake Walman.
The next day, in practice, the staff had the defensemen shooting over and around two nets that were set up in the face-off circle.
The Blues had 27 shots blocked last night and have had 92 blocked in the last four games combined.
Here’s a drill to get the puck over/around traffic and on net. #stlblues pic.twitter.com/LdCot4rM2s
— Jeremy Rutherford (@jprutherford) April 23, 2021
Did it work?
Well, just 13 Blues shots were blocked in the two wins combined, including just four Monday. The team took a total of 50 shots in the back-to-back and scored nine goals, so with their attempts getting through, their shooting percentage is going up.
With Minnesota up next — and the opponent in five of the final 10 games — the Blues might need to run through the shot drill again. The Wild lead the league in blocked shots with 725 this season (15.26 per 60 minutes).
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5. Riding Binnington
Can you remember the last time Ville Husso played? I’ll help: a 3-2 overtime win over Minnesota on April 10.
Jordan Binnington has played the past five games, and if he plays the entire game Wednesday in Minnesota, it will be the longest stretch this season in which Husso has not appeared.
The Blues are in a battle for the fourth and final playoff spot in the West Division, and they’re rightfully riding Binnington. Granted, he was well-rested because the team had four days off before facing Colorado last Thursday and had played just one game in seven days, but if not for the playoff push, Husso might’ve gotten one of those games.
The workload and the caliber of opponent — Colorado has the No. 1-ranked offense in the NHL at 3.52 goals per game — seemed to bring out the best in Binnington. He allowed seven goals on 91 shots (.923 save percentage), and just three of the seven goals came at even strength. The other four came on the power play.
In Saturday’s game, with the Avalanche leading 2-0, Binnington made a massive save on Nazem Kadri that prevented the Avs from taking a 3-0 advantage. Soon after, O’Reilly responded with two goals to tie the score, and Barbashev gave them a 3-2 lead before the end of the period.
Then, on Monday, Binnington limited the Avs to just one goal on 32 shots, and that one was on the PP.
“Binner was outstanding again, even when it was 4-1,” Perron said. “He didn’t give them anything to build off, and it was great.”
One of his saves was a double-pad stack save — well, sort of — on Colorado’s Kiefer Sherwood.
MY GOODNESS!!!! #stlblues pic.twitter.com/COG9hF4DcW
— St. Louis Blues (@StLouisBlues) April 27, 2021
“It’s an attempt at a pad (save),” Binnington said. “I think it’s like a ‘halfer.’ Call it what you want. I’ve never really executed that in a game before. I actually got a text from my old man (John), and he said, ‘You don’t know how long I’ve been waiting for that.’ He was laughing. It was kind of a free-for-all, kind of freestyle play. And it worked out this time.”
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The decision to stick with Binnington is working out for the Blues.
But as mentioned, they have a lot of games coming up in a short period, including three sets of back-to-back games. So keep in mind that they’ll have to keep their starting netminder as rested as possible.
Whether it’s the Blues’ top players producing, putting them in position to succeed or refining their skills, it’s looking more and more like these developments might matter as they look to secure a postseason berth.
(Photo: Jeff Le / USA Today)
