Stars At Blues Open Thread 1/10/08

Ya, the Fishwrap also had a Blues article in todays sports section (front page) above the fold.

But more importantly, above the cardinals article. Impressive.
(I even read it, and I NEVER read anything but this site and Game Time)

Isn’t having no “extra” forwards on the roster risky? It seems like last-minute scratches due to “the flu” are fairly common.

Makes it easier on “the staff” without having to decide who sits out though.

Particle Man, I agree with you, but I think Murray believes it is better for younger guy to be playing frequently than sitting in the press box for several games. And obviously Matt Walker is the exception that proves this rule.

In JR’s live chat with JD today, someone asked the question about who could be brought up from Peoria.

JD threw out the names of Mike Glumac and Trent Whitfield as examples of guys who are playing well in P-Ville. He also seemed to indicate that Charles Linglet still had things to work on, and that Nikolay Lemtyugov isn’t ready yet…

As much as I like Whitfield and Glumac for what they contribute to the Rivermen, if they’re all that Blues’ fans can look forward to for a forward callup, I’d just as soon they stick with the “leave ’em in Peoria and let ’em play” plan.

I can’t really find fault with how the organ-I-zation is developing young guys these days, but sometimes I wish the Blues would go the route of other teams in the NHL and play the kids just for the sake of shaking things up a little bit. If they work out, great, you’ve found something. If they’re not ready yet, then ship ’em back up to P-Ville, no harm done.

Of course, the Blues might lose a game or two by doing this, and if those lost points kept the Blues out of the playoffs, the Chicken Little sky-is-falling crowd in this town — “fans” as well as some of the “professional” media — would have a field day crowing “I told you that the Blues didn’t deserve more coverage than Fort Zumwalt girls’ hoops.”

Yeah, I’m lookin’ at YOU, Cusamano…

B.

wow what the hell is jd thinking? what does linglet have to work on? +19 leads the team in scoring. he’s been showing the tools. he’s been going to the tough places and comes out with the puck. has a wicked shot. hell no we don’t need him on our team.

while i am a fan of glumac he looked weaker than normal. still a strong player who i won’t hate to see. whitfield’s a hard worker with some hands but imo he’s become far too familiar with the ahl style. ahl is pretty different from the nhl. different seams, different speeds.

i agree about nikolia. he’s growing by leaps and bounds and is already way above any timetable set for him but he’s not quite there. i would think they expect him to gain some muscle over the summer and have him compete for a roster spot but most likely put hom down for half a year.

yan stasney’s ready to play in the nhl as well. he’s got the tools. he blocks shots etc.

but hey when we play the speedier teams king will look like he did against buffalo when murray made that mistake. he played one shift got powned and kept the bench warm for almost an entire game.

could we get petr cajanek back? please…

I’m sure we’ll be fine for the time being. if another forward gets injured, we still have 7 defensemen and we can always throw softee bEckman on the 4th line.

??

hey, stop laughing!

you know….THEN call up someone depending on who got injured

half hour before game time, starting goalies is as follows:
Manny has been confirmed, and Smith is most likely since Turco played last night and they have a tough travel schedule.

yep, it’s Smith

and same lines as the Columbus game

in other news rookie goal-scoring phenom Alex Ovechkin just signed a 13 year contract extension. I told you he was a Capital for life.

Blues get a power play 6 minutes into the first period. Zubov to the box for hooking

Bradley Boyes says, “Here’s what I think about your All-Star snub!”

1-0 Blues

NICE!! Boyes’ shot from the point done in typical Blues fashion: in the waning seconds of the power play or in the first seconds after

1-0 Blues

another Bradley beating me to the punch as I take the time to spell check my post…

giggles as Mike Smith wears the number infamously known as the one worn by waste-of-cell-division Jocelyn Thibault

whew! wide open net, and Emmanuel got lucky. still 1-0

bEckman goes to the box and the super-awesome Blues penalty kill goes to work

John Kelly: “glove save by Legace, made it look easy”

that’s because for him, it is. he’s in a league of his own.

Kariya slams one home!!! also making it look easy 2-0 St. Louis

great play by Stempniak taking out the defenseman behind the net on that goal. if he’d not done that, he probably would’ve been there to block the shot

bEckman returns to the sin bin for the same call as before as Andy Murray schemes on how to make his stick conpletely straight so he can’t hook people anymore.

crap. now I’m sounding like Dr. Seuss

great pressure by the Blues to finish off the period. Modano looked to have hurt his arm. we’ll see if it’s anything serious

Mike Smith has a big picture of Garth Brooks painted on the side of his helmet.

The Blue Baron Brad Boyes admits in his interview that he does get cold spells from time to time throughout his career. hopefully his goal in the first period was the end of his current cold streak.

spreaking of that goal, I have to say…

the Blue Baron Brad Boyes blasted and buried the buscuit quite beautifully.

if I were a goalie, I’d get the cotton-eye joe guy painted on my helmet

….so I can destroy it

I believe Dooks drank a four pack of Red Bull or something.

And the Stars just scored as Legace kinda flinched.

bastard Ribiero ruined Manny’s shutout

I believe Bradley Lee drank some tar and molasses, since he’s not posting near as much as usual. :p

McDonald showing he can play defense well too while Legace is sprawled on the ice

according to the announcers, Murray calls the Tkachuk line the red unit and the McClemment line the grey unit. I wonder what the othrs are

I still say the long haired brunette in the blue shirt on the Dobbs commercial looks like Skeletor

Kariya fakes out Morrow and makes him lose his stick and makes a beautiful pass to Walt and he buries it! 3-1 Blues

and Bud Light continues it’s reign of having the best commercials on television

I LOVE BOYES!!!!!!!

before the goal, however, MacDonald showing he can CHECK too! he knocked a guy completely off his feet with an open-ice shove

“the Blues have not lost a game when they scored 4 goals”

music to my ears

speaking of omnipotent Andy MacDonald, before he came here, I didn’t think he was so freaking small! I thought he was Stempniak-sized, not Kariya sized

Was doing the dishes, had to run to the bank. Now I have to kick the dog for barking. It looks like you’re doing just fine. I think we could still use you to do a live blog coming up. I’m committed to Friday night but there are a lot of road games coming up if you’re still interested.

The power play doesn’t look absolutely horrible. That’s weird.

I was actually thinking of making a post requesting that you say something for once, heh

but sure, I’d do (at least) one. let me know at least a day ahead of time, just in case I need to adjust my work schedule. I’ve been consistantly scheduled mornings, but I get a night once in awhile (usually Saturdays) so most likely I’ll be available

We’ll consult the schedule and figure it out.

Dallas got another cheap goal. Checketts is at the game

wait nevermind, they didn’t count it. still 4-1

Is there anything better than that quote… “Sorry, we almost got that taco goal.” Thank you Dave Checketts!

gutsy move there by Mayers knocking the puck back for Manny to cover it. Manny in turn got bowled over. Mayers made up for it by getting in the guy’s face

Mayers gets a penalty for roughing or boarding and that’s about all there is to speak of in this third period. only a few minutes to go

great. Dallas has a 2-man advantage

salvador, Brewer and R.J. are the shutdown guys, and Miettinen scores into the open side of the net. Blues lead 4-2

Stars pull their goalie, and time expires. your winner: the Blues!

On that play that Mayers passed back and Manny got bowled over, he (Manny) hurt his elbow. In the post-game interview he said it was tingling after that for the rest of the game. I didn’t see exactly what happened there — anybody have details?

I’m assuming that tingly feeling is different than the feeling he had after hearing he made the all-star team. Different in a bad and scary way (at least it wasn’t his knee).

Couple other comments: seemed like King didn’t have a great fight — looked like he took a couple of shots to the face. Dallas hit a couple of posts too, but overall the Blues played great. Some nice passing on those goals (and a few near-misses too).

Pretty good game in the offensive zone. They did a great job of finding seams for good shots. Lots of 2-on-1 opportunities with a 2-goal lead; we have speed. Awesome play by Perron on Boyes’ second, he got the defenseman in no-man’s land and kept him there until Boyes could get there by threatening to shoot without faking.

Good puck pursuit, decent game by Brewer again. I agree with Sean, he is what he is, and that’s not a #1 defenseman, but his long reach and physical play kept the Ribiero line pretty much off the board when he was out there… The Stars 1st goal came when DJ got caught and was absolutely gassed so they were effectively 4 on 5. The call on Mayers was brutal-he had speed, but he coasted into the Stars player. After the cheap shot on Kariya, it’s a wonder Ribiero wasn’t jacked, but Robidas got blasted a couple of times after the hit.

The Jay & the Americans line was strong again: no points, but they gave the Stars fits. Over the last couple of games, Backes in particular has looked like the player he needs to be: not afraid to throw his weight around in the corners, strong on the puck and making good decisions, and going to the net.

Lots more movement on the power play, I can see us scoring more. This wasn’t one of Manny’s more under control games, but he kept the puck out of the net when it mattered.

Just got back from the game (student night… gotta love it). Great play all around, passing on the power play looked pretty crisp.. I feel confident we would’ve won tonight with either Turco or Smith in goal. And wow its fun to watch McDonald bursting into the zone along the boards with his superior speed. Only negative I can think of were some weak penalty calls against the Blues at the end of the 3rd.

Now if St. Louis could get the Westbound Metro trains to arrive at Scottrade in less than a 30 minute wait…

Also, I have to say that all 3 scoring lines (tkachuk, kariya, mayers) (boyes, macdonald, perron) (stempniak, backes, mcclement) were pretty effective today, even though the goals came from our usual top guys.

sounds like you’re just barely missing the train. try to memorize the times it comes around the time the game ends, so you know if you have to leave a couple minutes early, or if it’s neccessary to hang out inside for another 20

My only complaint: Too many “horn guys” and too many drunk bastards thinking Eric Brewer can here them heckle him.

If that’s it, I’d say that’s a good game of hockey.

Great win! Another big game on the road tonight. Let’s beat those pathetic BJ losers again!

awesome game. we’re all on the same page it seems like about what we noticed.

i wasn’t happy about king’s decision to drop the gloves up 4-1 with what, about 7:40 left in the second? never give a visiting team who’s getting schooled a reason to dig deep. isn’t that the new trend also? pretty stupid. the only good thing about it is the crowd got even more into the game not that that was necessary.

still thinking i’d like to see linglet. i think we might as rj blocked a shot and was wincing pretty hard and another guy i can’t recall also looked like he was a bit hurt.

salavador shook a shot off the ankle. i am mildly concerned about it all. we still have some depth at d down low as i have been forgetting about miki dupont, besides the obvious three of wagner, polack(hurt) and wyowitka.

i just finished reading jd’s chat on stltoday.com. the man could sell me the brooklyn bridge. he’s a smart man. he’s right about being patient. i am that but i thought we’d be trying some more youth out. reading between the lines i’m liking what i’m hearing. my big fear at the begining of the year was that we’d lose some imo valuable prospect for some short term shot.

i still ponder a linglet or a glumac or martin kariya. i still ponder getting rid of backman(okay not just ponder but pray). maybe it’d be too much for the coaches to deal with as far as grooming goes…? i can buy that one.

Leave the game early!??! Blasphemy!

All I’m saying is that back when I went to school in Boston, they’d always have trains lined up, waiting at the station for fans after sporting events. I don’t see why St. Louis can’t work something out like that.

pdub: because Metro doesn’t know how to run a light rail system?

ChrisD: Beckman’s the defenseman I’d miss the least, but he has been playing better the last two games. He actually took a hit to make a play, and the rush before he got the hooking penalty (that was a whiner’s penalty-he made a good play against the rush using his speed and nothing was called rightfully, but some Dallas punk got the ref’s ear and they called him for something to make up the call they were afraid they missed.)

Anybody else dislike the need to “even out” penalties in a game?