GDT: St. Louis Blues and the Holy Fail| 8pm CST|

[WeWentBlues]

Aside from Monday night's debacle vs Vegas, the Blues team that showed up last night looked similar to the Blues team that played the three previous series vs Anaheim, Minnesota and Colorado. The big difference is we scored early and were able to play with the lead the whole game and the we beat the opposing goalie cleanly which has not been happening during this scoring drought.

Nice to get back in the W column. Particularly against a team that has had our number this year.

 

[Ted Hoffman]

Best GDT I've seen in forever. The no-longer-appearing one had me ROLLING

 

[Thallis]

The win felt good. Great to see Tarasenko showing some confidence in his shot. Nice to see some deserved swagger from Binnington.

But the Blues better start reducing the opponents’ shots and chances if they want to make this a habit. This game is a much-needed step in the right direction.

The volume of uncontested shots in tight and second and third chances are way too high for me to be comfortable with this game.

 

[ezcreepin]

The volume of uncontested shots in tight and second and third chances are way too high for me to be comfortable with this game.

My thoughts too. I fell asleep midway through the game, but found out late last night Binnington made 50 saves which really surprised me Vegas had that many shots. I think those powerplay chances really added up, but in general Binnington stood on his head more than the team played well, albeit they did play much better than in past games.

 

[MissouriMook]

@The Note For Friday...

 

[BadgersandBlues]

Vegas plays such an interesting style - they know they don't have fast players, so their entire goal on zone entries is to hold the puck as long as they can to pull the coverage towards the puck carrier, then BANG, they hit the late man trailing, who generally has a pretty solid look.

We helped them quite a bit last night with some sloppy coverage - we also need to break the puck out WAY better. Board battles were something we were so good at when we won the Cup, especially wingers in the D-zone. We still have most of those guys, yet they don't get the puck out as reliably as they used to. I wish I knew why.

I love Binnington. I can never hate him after Game 7 of the SCF. Ever. I love his swagger, I love his confidence. I love when he stirs the pot by going after the other team. I wish more players did things like that, but then again, if there were, it wouldn't feel as special as it does when you DO find the player who has it. I love his comment after the game. If we get this type of goaltending for the rest of the year, there's no team we can't beat.

Parayko looks awful. But MY GOD did I forget how nice it was to have a 6'6" dude with a 200 ft wingspan playing D. There was a moment at the end of the game when the puck was down low and he just kept creeping his stick closer and closer to the Vegas player to prevent a play towards the boards while still maintaining great body position to stop any centering effort. Can't teach size. Full marks to him for gutting it out. It might look ugly at times, but having him in the lineup has a cascading affect and puts everyone else where they're supposed to be.

Good for Walman. That dude can skate. I've thought he's showed signs offensively driving the play a bit with his puck carrying ability - the next step for him is making sure the breakouts are crisper, especially under pressure. I think he's shown WAY more then Mikkola, who I'm pretty much ready to move on from. We're probably losing Dunn either to trade or the expansion draft and I think Walman will be a fairly suitable replacement moving forward.

Finally - to whoever in the other thread said zone starts are overrated - you're smoking something awesome man. Are they the be-all-end-all? Naw. But it's pretty effing hard to score in this league and it seems like simple logic that it's even harder to score when you start 200 feet away from the net you want to score in, with all 5 "bad guys" ahead of you.

 

[ezcreepin]

Vegas plays such an interesting style - they know they don't have fast players, so their entire goal on zone entries is to hold the puck as long as they can to pull the coverage towards the puck carrier, then BANG, they hit the late man trailing, who generally has a pretty solid look.

We helped them quite a bit last night with some sloppy coverage - we also need to break the puck out WAY better. Board battles were something we were so good at when we won the Cup, especially wingers in the D-zone. We still have most of those guys, yet they don't get the puck out as reliably as they used to. I wish I knew why.

I love Binnington. I can never hate him after Game 7 of the SCF. Ever. I love his swagger, I love his confidence. I love when he stirs the pot by going after the other team. I wish more players did things like that, but then again, if there were, it wouldn't feel as special as it does when you DO find the player who has it. I love his comment after the game. If we get this type of goaltending for the rest of the year, there's no team we can't beat.

Parayko looks awful. But MY GOD did I forget how nice it was to have a 6'6" dude with a 200 ft wingspan playing D. There was a moment at the end of the game when the puck was down low and he just kept creeping his stick closer and closer to the Vegas player to prevent a play towards the boards while still maintaining great body position to stop any centering effort. Can't teach size. Full marks to him for gutting it out. It might look ugly at times, but having him in the lineup has a cascading affect and puts everyone else where they're supposed to be.

Good for Walman. That dude can skate. I've thought he's showed signs offensively driving the play a bit with his puck carrying ability - the next step for him is making sure the breakouts are crisper, especially under pressure. I think he's shown WAY more then Mikkola, who I'm pretty much ready to move on from. We're probably losing Dunn either to trade or the expansion draft and I think Walman will be a fairly suitable replacement moving forward.

Finally - to whoever in the other thread said zone starts are overrated - you're smoking something awesome man. Are they the be-all-end-all? Naw. But it's pretty effing hard to score in this league and it seems like simple logic that it's even harder to score when you start 200 feet away from the net you want to score in, with all 5 "bad guys" ahead of you.

Love the analysis, I pretty much feel the same way for everything. I'm not necessarily done with Mikkola, but he's going to have to work on handling that grenade with much more poise than he's doing now. It's clear that our defensive scheme has shifted and you can see this with the new "whip the puck along the boards" play. Lots of players are using this strategy but it never works because the support is either at the blue line or in the neutral zone, which is super frustrating. I'm excited for Walman, but I haven't really gotten to watch him play all that much, I usually just take a look at a few numbers from hockeyrefence and NHL.com and go from there. I have noticed though that he is playing quite a bit in the pk. Idk if that's a good idea, but he can skate really well, seems to have good offensive instincts, so if he's willing to learn that role then he might just end up being a really solid defensman. Binnington on the other hand has given the team a chance to win for at least 6 games even if his sv% doesn't say so for some of those games. He's rocking a 2.21 gaa over that frame with a sv% of 0.925. Can't really complain about him when the team has averaged 1.71 goals for, even accounting for last nights game. I knew I wanted more proven offense, but I didn't expect the team to crumble like it has.

 

[Xerloris]

I think Walman has secured himself a spot on the team and I think he deserves it. Much more comfortable with him out there than Mikkola.

 

[Mike Liut]

I hate the fact that we need Hasek caliber goaltending to win games. Not very sustainable in the long term.

 

[Stupendous Yappi]

I think Walman has secured himself a spot on the team and I think he deserves it. Much more comfortable with him out there than Mikkola.

The two biggest disappointments for me this year, of healthy players, are Husso and Mikkola.

 

[GoldenSeal]

The volume of uncontested shots in tight and second and third chances are way too high for me to be comfortable with this game.

Is it the strategy we're running that leaves our lanes wide open or do we need one or two truly big, strong, physical players who can shut down the opposing team? I'm kind of confused on this because the D, on paper, has been doing a sound job shutting down chances, but are they really shutting down good chances or letting only the good, skilled chances that just slightly press through?

We can't rely on Binny or any other goaltender to stop 50 shots a night. The fact he did it last night was a reminder of his greatness to the naysayers that say he's not a legit top drawer netminder. He doesn't care what you think lol.

 

[ChicagoBlues]

The two biggest disappointments for me this year, of healthy players, are Husso and Mikkola.

Boy needs to take a Mikkolaxative and chill the f*** out!

I’ve had confidence in Husso, so I’d say what we’re witnessing is not good. I think he will improve.

Mikkola was penciled into my main-stay roster only to be relegated to the practice squad.

 

[Thallis]

Is it the strategy we're running that leaves our lanes wide open or do we need one or two truly big, strong, physical players who can shut down the opposing team? I'm kind of confused on this because the D, on paper, has been doing a sound job shutting down chances, but are they really shutting down good chances or letting only the good, skilled chances that just slightly press through?

We can't rely on Binny or any other goaltender to stop 50 shots a night. The fact he did it last night was a reminder to the naysayers that he's not a legit top drawer netminder. He doesn't care what you think lol.

We're average in Corsi against/60 (literally the median team) and just below in xGA/60. That implies we're exactly average at shot supression, but we allow better quality chances than most.

 

[BlueDream]

I think Walman has secured himself a spot on the team and I think he deserves it. Much more comfortable with him out there than Mikkola.

I like Walman’s game and I hope he keeps progressing.

Ideally I’d like for him to be Dunn’s replacement in the near future. Krug is okay but in watching him, it really doesn’t make me excited for Perunovich at all. I don’t want two guys that small on the backend.

 

[Cotton McKnight]

Finally watched this one.

I liked Walman and Parayko together, I think they compliment each other well. Huge plus was Walman's first goal.

Binny: Don't see the return of the swagger yet, won't fault him for that lone goal against. Pretty decent game for him.

Schwartz: Looked like he cares again, which is best Schwartz.

Good overall Blues style play, and some favorable reffing (err game management) definitely went our way early.

 

[Blueston]

The win felt good. Great to see Tarasenko showing some confidence in his shot. Nice to see some deserved swagger from Binnington.

But the Blues better start reducing the opponents’ shots and chances if they want to make this a habit. This game is a much-needed step in the right direction.

Yeah, if we need 50 saves every game ain’t going far.

 

[Brian39]

Hockey is such a silly sport. I thought we played better vs Minnesota, both games vs Anaheim and both games vs Colorado. Yet we go 0-4-1 in those games and win this one. Vegas had an xGF of 5.69 for the game and the heat maps are a little scary:

However, there are lots of positives to take away. Binner looked great, but his mechanics are unchanged from his play the last couple weeks. He's been allowing way too many inexplicably bad goals lately and while playing excellent for the rest of the game. He's not going to post a .980 every night, but if he keeps these mechanics up and avoids the mental lapses, that is the guy you wanted at $6M AAV. If this game was in the midst of atrocious team play, I wouldn't get up about it. But I've thought our play has been better than our results for the last couple weeks (minus Monday's effort) and am hopeful that this game was the turning point.

We've dug a hole and I don't know if we can turn it around. But I'm excited about tonight's game for the first time in a while.