Blues Fall to Nashville; Get Pressure of Staying Undefeated Behind Them.

by gallagher on Oct 14, 2010 10:37 PM CDT

Nashville has had the Blues' number ever since they came into the league. Regardless of how good or bad both teams happen to be, the Predators always play St. Louis hard. Despite suffering through the growing pains of being an expansion franchise, they have manged to compile a nearly .500 record against the Blues at 30-26-12-2.

Tonight was no exception. Riding an early lead into the second period, they outlasted the pushing Blues and held on for a 4-3 win. I was without the aid of GameCenter Live due to the game being locally televised and was denied the locally televised broadcast because someone at the AT&T U-Verse center forgot to flip a switch until the third period. Add to that the slow upload of game highlights and no post-game video from the road as yet, and it makes it kind of difficult to write semi-knowledgably about the game.

Here are a couple points, feel free to fill me in on what I missed in the comments:

At least the powerplay got going. T.J. Oshie and Patrik Berglund both tallied their first of the year on the PP and the Blues finished 2-5 with the extra man, a big improvement from the 2-17 they went in the first two games.
Alex Steen is the Blues Toolkit. He plays on the powerplay, he plays on the penalty kill. He plays on the shutdown unit, he is expected to make chances for his team on offense. Tonight, in the last couple minutes of the game, needing a goal and playing at even strength, Davis Payne put him on defense. When is dude going to strap on the goalie pads?
Speaking of goalie pads, Jaroslav Halak may want a couple of those goals back, but I didn't see any of the Preds' tallies, so I don't know if they were his fault or not, but I know that Steve Sullivan's powerplay goal was a defensive breakdown. Roman Polak lost track of him and he got open on the back door, making his one-timer a pretty easy goal. What I did see from Halak in the third period was excellent and I know he made a couple other fantasitcal saves before my feed came to life.
Payne's coaching system definitely is trying to accentuate the skill of the Blues' youngsters. The Blues entire five man unit will rotate with the play, even if that means that the defensemen end up down low, which has happened multiple times in each game. I think opposing teams are having a hard time adjusting to it, but if the forwards who wind up on the points can be quick enough to get back defensively, it could re-define how other skilled teams set up their offenses.

Next game is Saturday in Dallas. Here's hoping for a faster start than we got tonight.

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Comments

For the first period it was like the Anaheim game in reverse. We were just buffalo balls. Lots of turnovers on our parts, no pressure, lots of breakaways, couldn’t handle the puck to save our lives. Last 2 minutes or so we had sustained pressure and it carried over a bit into the second. Weren’t good to start the second but not bad. We really started picking up steam about half way through period two and getting back to blues hockey. Nashville gets credit though they have a effective boring defensive scheme that slowed us down quite a bit. Nashville rung 3 maybe 4 off the metal as well so we really didn’t deserve to get back in the game like we did. Halak did well, he made a lot of real big saves and I can’t really say it was his fault on all those goals. We hung him out to dry for some of them.

It was our first road game so I would probably chalk the first period up to nerves and a new season. Our offensive scheme definitely seemed more run and gun though, EJ carried the puck across the line a few times and I even saw Polak dangling behind the opposing net.

Players I noticed:
Dagger got moved up the lines cause hes like a boss now.
Jackman is a brand new man. He has been blocking a ton of shots these 3 games and this one instead of just skating back and being super safe he said “fuck it” once or twice and tried hard to keep the play alive. Brewer bumble fucked a play that almost caused a breakaway but Jackman was back hella fast to shut it down, was really really impressive to see.
Berglund throwing his weight around more to protect the puck, he tossed his back into defenders a couple times to really give himself room to move. Hopefully he can get his game figured out this year because its plain to see what he can do if things just suddenly made sense for him.
Halak played a good game despite the 4 goals, I gotta say that hes looking like the goalie we need.

He raged at the world, at his family, at his life. But mostly he just raged.
Jay McClement for Selke in 2011. Justice will be served. Penalties will be killed.

by Icion on Oct 14, 2010 11:20 PM CDT reply actions

slow start

doomed blues period. however even in a loss there were a few things to notice of the positive variety.

berg is pretty darn tough to get the puck away from. i think the blues have been hoping, waiting, expecting, that out of him for a year and a half. but if he continues to do nothing more than refuse to give up the puck when he has it in the o-zone i’ll be doing a lot of celebrating

i knew there would come a point wher ethe fast transition would produce an ugly pick off or three, what was nice to see is that after getting hemmed in and destroyed inthe first period, the blues didn’t abandon a speed transition game, but rather found a way to make their system work

aa win tomorrow would be very good though

I recognized my kinship with all living beings, and I made up my mind that I was not one bit better than the meanest on earth ... while there is a lower class, I am in it, and while there is a criminal element I am of it, and while there is a soul in prison, I am not free.

by Childhood Trauma on Oct 15, 2010 10:52 AM CDT reply actions