Penguins Vs. Blues Recap: A Moose And...Walnuts?

The Pittsburgh Penguins came into town tonight to tangle with your Blues at Scottrade. In goal for the Blues would be Brian Elliott. The forward lines for tonight's match-up were: Steen, Stastny, Brouwer...Fabbri, Lehtera, Tarasenko...Berglund, Backes, Rattie, and finally Upshall, Brozdiak and Reaves. Returning to the D-lines tonight would be Bouwmeester after missing four games. He would be paired with Pietragelo once again. Shattenkirk and Parayko and Edmundson and Benoit would start after being called up from the Wolves.

First Period:

The Blues and Pens would set a good pace for the first period. Both teams would get decent chances. (Disclaimer: NBCSN was having some issues in the first tonight, so I apologize for the video quality) Just eleven seconds into the game Paul Stastny would come oh so close to giving the Blues a 1-0 lead. Needless to say, this was just the beginning for him tonight:

Brian Elliott would look strong early on tonight. The Pens with a great chance here but Ells would deny Hornqvist, not once, but twice.

The Blues would take advantage of an interesting move by Pens' goalie Jeff Zatkoff. He would decide to come out of the crease to try and play the puck. Wrong move Jeff. Brouwer gets a piece of it to Stastny who passes it over to Steen and Steener buries one into the empty net for the actual 1-0 Blues lead.

Steener gets his 14th of the year. Paul Stastny(16) would notch the only assist on the play. The Pens would get that goal back though with about two minutes to go in the period. Chris Kunitz would get behind the defense and score a breakaway goal. How this puck gets through four(!) Blues players is beyond me. It happened though and it's a tie game.

Blues were outshot 14-9 in the first but it would stay 1-1.

Second Period:

Blues would be outshot once again in the second period, but the result was about the same as it was in the first. A big reason for that was the play of Brian Elliott. The Blues were lifeless in front of him again in the second. Here he denies Crosby on the Pens powerplay. This Pens powerplay came courtesy of Jori Lehtera taking a really dumb interference call.

Unfortunately for the Blues, the Penguins also have a really good Russian in the form of Evgeni Malkin who would score his 20th of the season.

Fortunately for the Blues they have their good Russian, because just moments later Vladimir Tarasenko would show us all that he's pretty good at hockey despite not scoring a goal in the last 5 games. "Drought" over.

Tarasenko would notch his 25th of the year and plays anything you can do I can do better with Malkin. Edmundson(6) and Fabbri(7) would get the assists on the play.

The Blues again being out shot 17-8 in the period against a team that played last night. Hopefully something would give in the third.

Third Period:

Two minutes into the third we would find out which Blues would show up for the final period tonight. Troy Brouwer would break the 2-2 tie with his ninth of the year. Shoutout to former Blue Ian Cole with the swing and a miss.

Paul Stastny and Co. were having a good night. Finally "Pauly Walnuts" would cash in for himself. His linemates already had done it, why not him too?

It would be his fifth goal of the year, with Brouwer and Bouwmeester getting the assists. With about three and a half minutes left, the Penguins would pull their goalie. Tarasenko would get called for covering the puck with his hand which would give the Pens a 6 on 4 man advantage. Despite all of that, Shattenkirk would still bang home one more for the good guys.

Shatty would get his ninth of the year on the empty net goal. Stastny would pick up his fourth point of the night with his 18th assist. Steen (27) would pick one up as well capping off a very good night for the Steen, Stastny, Brouwer line as all three would score a goal.

The Blues would pick up the 5-2 win despite being outshot again by their opponent. Elliott was rocking the Cujo mask again tonight. Not that it has anything to do with it but...two nights being outshot by the opposition and still picking up the win. Makes you wonder doesn't it? Granted shots were almost even in the third with an 8-7 advantage to the Pens. (The final total was 38-25 Pens) The Blues hit the road to play Detroit Wednesday night. Fair warning it's another NBCSN game, so plan accordingly.

Three Stars:

Third Star: Brian Elliott (36 for 38, I'm telling you keep the Cujo mask)

Second Star: Troy Brouwer (1 goal, 1 assist, Needs a Go, Go, Brouwer Ranger Theme)

First Star: Paul Stastny (1 goal, 3 assists, Someone still hates him)