Game Day

Recap: Wild Bounce Blues

These were not the bounces we were looking for.

By Justin42 Mar 21, 2015, 5:07pm CDT

After a disappointing 2-1 shootout loss to the Jets on Thursday, the Blues would travel to take on the Wild. The Wild are coming off of a 3-2 loss to the Capitals. Starting in net would be Brian Elliott for the Blues and Devan Dubnyk for the Wild. Starting off the game, Paul Stastny and Jori Lehtera would switch spots. Marcel Goc would also be back in the line up for today's game. The defense pairings would be the same as they were in Winnipeg.

First Period:

Welp. What's there to say other than the Blues still haven't found a way to find a goal in the first. Starting out strong the Blues looked like they were well on their way to playing a great game. Oops. One of the bright spots today was Vladimir Tarasenko. Shocking I know. Here he is denied on the doorstep by Dubnyk off of a Wild turnover:

Later in the first. the Wild, not having the same first period scoring problems, get a goal from Chris Stewart. Because of course he would:

Amazing how a player traded from his former team, would want to play better against said team. Where was this in St. Louis Chris!?! Oh well. 1-0 bad guys. Thomas Vanek would make it 2-0 on the first shitty/lucky bounce of the game:

I mean what is Ells supposed to do there? I can't blame him on that. And won't. 2-0 Wild.

Second Period:

Parise would make it look all too easy here as he bury's the rebound for a now 3-0 Wild lead:

Not looking good for the good guys at this point. But wait, there's more, as not even a minute later, the Wild would score AGAIN. This time a deflection off of David Backes AND Carl Gunnarson to beat Ells and put the Wild up by 4.

That would end Brian Elliott's day. That brings in Jake Allen. I get the change, but you hate to see this on days where the Blues play back to back games. Not sure what the plan for tomorrow will be, but it will make things interesting. Now, with Allen in net, the Blues would finally start to push back. Vladdy has had enough of this shutout nonsense.

Great rebound control for the goal by Tarasenko there. That would be number 35 on the season for Frank. Wild were still up by 3, but you could definitely feel that the Blues were turning a corner to get themselves back in the game. Hitch would move Lehtera back to center between Schwartz and Tarasenko. The STL line would then do this:

Wow. What another outstanding play by Tarasenko, and Schwartz was there to clean up the rebound. 4-2 Wild. We have ourselves a ballgame. Just kidding:

Jay Bouwmeester with the deflection and it's 5-2 Wild. Yet another deflected puck in the back of the net that I doubt many goaltenders would have been able to stop.

Third Period:

Carl Gunnarson would be out the rest of the game with an upper body injury, it wouldn't really matter at this point. The Blues were down 5-2 at this point, and showed signs of what killed them in the first. Absolute garbage play at times. Pietrangelo with the tip in here. I mean it's almost comical at this point how this game was won:

I can't remember the last time so many deflected pucks found the back of the net. Paul Stastny would add another powerplay goal for the Blues. One of the few bright spots for the Blues today.

That would be Pauly's 500th NHL point. It would also be his 14th goal as a member of the Blues. The Blues came out flat today and paid for it. All bounces aside, it was still a fairly poor performance from the good guys. Other than 91, no one really stood out to me today as having any fucks to give about this game. Which is really unfortunate in the middle of a playoff race.

No time to think about that game though as the Blues take on Fuck Detroit in Detroit. Hopefully the team shows up on time tomorrow. Early start on NBC.

Recap: Wild Bounce Blues

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