Blues vs Florida Recap: 82-0-0 Dreams Dashed

Sup Gametime, it’s been a while since I have written one of these. That said of COURSE the St. Louis Blues would lose and spoil my unexpected comeback and joy. Ha.

The Blues looked tired tonight. They came out in the first in Florida skating in sludge and never escaped. The Panthers pounced on the opening and opportunities that the Blues gave them. The Blues first shot of the game was not recorded until 9:14 of the first period. After a high and wide puck from Alex Petrangelo went into the crowd. Chris Thornburn tried to light a fire under someones ass by getting into his first fight as a Blue, and first fight of the season, with the Panthers’ Mike Haley.

I will let you be the judge of its effectiveness.

The Blues got a chance to up their shot total and take an early lead on the Panther’s when Derek MacKenzie whacked the puck over the glass and took a delay of game minor penalty. The Panthers’ obligatory grease monkey, Roberto Luongo shined while facing a barrage of shots early on in the power play by the Blues. At the other end of the ice, Jake Allen seemed to be doing just fine. He faced several shots and kept the Panthers off the scoreboard, for the first period.

The Second period opened up with a penalty for Florida, allowing the Blues to get on the board with a goal from Paul Stastny with 18:46 left in the second. Unfortunately it didn’t last long before Florida was on the board as well, Ian McCoshen put a slapper past Allen 12 seconds later, his first NHL goal.

It all went down hill from there. Allen looked confused and often was out of position giving up easy goals for the Panthers. By the end of the second period the blues were down 3-1. Florida’s Vincent Trocheck scored with 17:15 left in the second and Jared McCann scored at 12:18 to round out the scoring of the period. Brayden Schenn thought he was able to keep his team with in 1 but the officials determined his stick was too high.

The third period didn’t get much better. Aaron Ekblad scored with 16:44 left in the Third period. The boys in blue would continue to try and play catch up both on the scoreboard and in keeping up with the momentum. Nick Bjugstad scored with 5:58 left in the game. The damage was done when new kid Vince Dunn caught a break and scored his first NHL goal with 1:09 left.

I can’t say that I didn’t expect this out of the Blues. They head back home with a pretty decent 4-1-0 record after playing 4 games in 6 days. Hopefully they can straighten things out on their day off tomorrow and play a stronger game in Tampa Bay on Saturday.

Highlights