It was Military Appreciation Night tonight in the STL. The boys wore military inspired sweaters during warm ups and held a special Puck Drop Ceremony featuring Corporal Justin McLoud dropping the puck to Captain David Backes and The Coyotes' Captain Shane Doan.
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The First period would see the Blues take the lead quick. At 5:53, Maxim Lapierre would be awarded the goal after having it bounce off of his body and past the Yote's Mike Smith.
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Phoenix would take hold of the game's momentum from there and take the lead 2-1 at the end of the first. Smith was pretty damn good for the yotes tonight, as he has been all season for them. He was blocking anything the Blues threw his way and there were quite a few fucks and shits thrown out by the blue and yellow after the play. His sudo brick wall held strong throughout the second period as the score stood till the third.
The Blues seemed to surge out of the gate at the start of the third. At 2:49 Alexander Steen would feed the Puck to Roman Polak who would pretend he is a grade a goal scorer for just a bit and snap the puck past Smith, tieing the game up at 2.
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From there the Blues would throw everything but the kitchen sink at Smith to try and take back the lead. Unfortunately they couldn't find another crack in the wall and would go to Overtime. OT would barely last a minute as Phoenix's Oliver Ekman-Larsson would take advantage of Patrik Berglund stick getting caught in his skate blade allowing for him to get the puck past Jaroslav Halak and win the game.
The goal was pretty flukeing in my opinion but I could pretty much feel it coming after it threw Bergy off. The Blues play tonight left much to be desired, especially in the first period where they allowed Phoenix to dominate the majority of the play and puck control. However I was glad to see they didn't give up and fought to come back and at least get the OT Point... Silver Linings I guess.
The Blues are back at it on Thursday against the Avalanche. I am still looking for someone to cover the recap (*cough*GT Crew*cough*) as I will be unable to watch because of work.
Well those are my thoughts, I'd love to hear yours! Let me know in the comments!