Blues Vs. Blackhawks Recap: Early Vacation

Blues Lineup:

The Blues lineup would see a change tonight as Ryan Reaves would sit this one out. Your forward lines would be the same otherwise with Steen, Stastny, Brouwer...Fabbri, Lehtera, Tarasenko...Berglund, Backes, Rattie (T.J. Rattie if you were watching on the NHL network apparently.) Again the only change tonight would be Upshall in for Reaves with Brozdiak and Jaskin. Your Defensive pairings for the Blues would be Pietrangelo,Shattenkirk...Gunnarson, Shattenkirk, and Edmundson with Parayko. Brian Elliott would start tonight.

First Period:

If tonight's first period could be duplicated for the rest of the year (The rest of this game would have even been nice) I would take it. The Blues had some good chances on Crawford in the early frame. Joel Edmundson would make a bid for his first goal as he would take a pass from Tarasenko but be denied by Crawford.

Scottie Upshall would generate a great chance on net but again Crawford was there to deny him.

The Blues would continue to put pressure on Crawford though. Steen would fan on a rebound chance giving Crawford an easy save. Steen might have made it 1-0 here.

The Blues would have two consecutive scoring chances from Backes and Rattie. Backes would hit the crossbar, and Rattie would bounce one right off of Crawford's noggin.

The Blues would finish the period with 12 shots but couldn't bury any of them. 0-0 after one.

Second Period:

Brian Elliott was a little bit busier in the middle frame tonight. Here he stops Kane on a spinning backhand. Elliott says no and means no.

The Blackhawks would keep pushing the Blues and would finally break through as Artemi Panarin would get one past Elliott for a 1-0 bad guys lead. (Warning: Horrible song alert)

It was a bad break for the Blues as the puck would actually deflect off of Kevin Shattenkirk's stick and go in. The Blues wouldn't really have any great scoring chances as they did in the first. Paul Stastny would try to sneak one past Crawford after a Blackhawks turnover late in the period.

After two periods it's 1-0 Hawks. Shots were 11-6 in favor of Chicago.

Third Period:

Let the line juggling begin. Something needed to be done after the Blues have scored all of 3 goals on the road trip so far. So it's not like the offense was shuffled after it had been clicking after a few games. (Although I could see that happening anyway because Hitch) Tarasenko would be with Stastny and Berglund to start the frame and Berglund did get a shot on net.

The Blackhawks would get a powerplay chance early on in the third period. Dmitrij Jaskin would fall down. Hawks player fell down on him. Jaskin called for tripping. Andrew Shaw would capitalize on the situation. (Horrible Song Warning number two)

At first Brian Elliott would seem to think it was deflected in off a high stick, but alas it was not, and the Blues would go down by two. The Blues were lifeless compared to the first. They generated 12 shots in the first period. They only were able to generate 13 the rest of the game. That was partly on them. It was also on Chicago playing better as the game went on. (That's not really saying much). The Blues would get a power play chance of their own but couldn't take advantage on the man advantage. In fact Steen had their only decent chance. Even then it was a shot from the outside.

In the end the first period effort wasn't enough, and the Blues would fall to the Blackhawks 2-0 Shots for the third were 8-7 in favor of Chicago. For a Blues/Blackhawks game, it really didn't feel like one. No real energy for either team tonight. The Blues are now off until February second.

Three Stars:

Third Star: Artemi Panarin (1 goal, name sounds like Panera Bread or something)

Second Star: Patrick Kane (1 assist. Had a bobble head night. Dumpster fire of a human being)

First Star: Corey Crawford (25 saves, Shutout. No word on if he still goes to Rise Against concerts)