Blues At Flames: Blues Keep Up Pressure, Can't Solve Kipprusoff, Lose 3-2

This was an interesting game. The first period? The Blues generally controlled the play except for a bit of a penalty kill issue that lead to a power play goal by Roman Cervenka of all people, who wristed his fourth goal of the season past Jaroslav Halak. The Blues figured "hey, maybe we need to put the pressure on Mikka Kipprusoff to see what gets him to crack."

What gets him to crack? Not much the Blues shelled Kipper in the second period, getting 19 pucks on goal in comparison to the Flames' 4. How many went in? One, by T.J. Oshie, but not before the Flames exploited Oshie's failure to clear a puck. Who exploited it? Cervenka again. Apparently he's growing into his newfound status as a Blues-killer.

It was a pretty shot, but if Oshie had cleared the puck, it never would have happened. Luckily Osh doesn't give up or beat himself up after the goal. Instead he just has Curtis Glencross cross check him into the boards, which resulted in a crosschecking penalty fpor Glencross and an inexplicable unsportsmanlike conduct call on Oshie. No worries; Oshie gets sprung from the box and goes blocker-side on Kipper, cutting the Flames' lead in half.

Nice.

Even nicer? The Blues knotting it up at two just 4:48 into the third period. Vladimir Sobotka shoved in his 8th goal of the year.

Unfortunately, Jarome Iginla scored on an atrocious lapse of concentration by Jaroslav Halak. Wade Redden completely bailed Halak out by knocking the puck away on Iggy's breakaway, but the slide carried him into Halak, giving Iginla a chance to shove the puck right into the net.

The most frustrating thing wasn't Iginla's goal. Rather, it was the 0-for-4 that the Blues went on the power play. It's been weak as of late, and needs to work itself out as soon as possible. The Blues could have used a more effective PP tonight.

Tonight's game was not a bad one, and there weren't any major screw-ups to pick apart. The only big goof was Oshie's failure to clear, which he owned up to and never quit trying to fix. If Oshie had quit, or if the team had quit at any point, then we can be concerned. As it stands, tonight's hame was just a tough loss that probably should have been a win had the Blues not come right up against an extremely hot goalie. Honestly, you can't say much more when a team has nearly 40 shots on goal and they bust their asses for three periods straight. Sometimes this stuff happens. Clean up, move on, and beat the Oilers on Tuesday.