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Leafs Vs. Blues Recap: Starting Off The New Era 1 and Yeo

Five for five. Just how we all drew it up.

By Justin42
Billy Hurst-USA TODAY Sports

Blues Lineup:

Forwards: Alexander Steen/Paul Stastny/David Perron

Jaden Schwartz/Jori Lehtera/Vladimir Tarasenko

Robby Fabbri/Patrik Berglund/Nail Yakupov

Scottie Upshall/Ivan Barbashev/Ryan Reaves

Defensemen: Jay Bouwmeester/Alex Pietrangelo

Carl Gunnarsson/Kevin Shattenkirk

Joel Edmundson/Colton Parayko

Goaltender: Jake Allen

Game Highlights:

After an emotional ceremony, the Blues took the ice against Auston Matthews and the Maple Leafs. With a shiny new coach behind the bench (seriously have you seen that dome?) the Blues turned the page on a new chapter. Too bad there were a few pages missing in the beginning. The Blues gave up the first goal of the night. This was after they had some decent chances and could have easily been ahead. David Perron had an ample opportunity to score the games first goal on a breakaway.

With around five and a half minutes left in the first, Mitch Marner breaks the 0-0 tie, beating Jake Allen five hole. There was a lot of traffic in front of the net. No one kept their eye on Marner though. Oops.

As good a first as the Blues were having, they were bound to score a goal. That they did with about 2 minutes left in the first. Alexander Steen takes a pass from Kevin Shattenkirk and the puck finds the back of the net. It looked like it went off of Anderson's pad, through his legs, and in. Steen get's his tenth goal of the year and the Blues get the game tied up at one.

Steen was involved in goal number two for the Blues as well. Only this time he was the one dishing out the puck. Seven minutes had ticked by in the period when Steen found Paul Stastny in front of the net. Stastny wouldn't miss from that close in giving the Blues the 2-1 lead. Stastny found the net for the 13th time of the year.

Thirty some odd seconds later, the Blues make it 3-1. Vladimir Tarasenko and his quick release give the Blues that dreaded two goal lead. That's Tarasenko's 23rd of the year and one of his easier looking goals.

Remember that dreaded two goal lead? Colton Parayko takes care of that. He gave the Blues a three goal lead at 4-1 with the Blues on the power play. Colton who was playing like a man possessed (as were his teammates) scored his fourth goal of the year. Shoutout to Vladimir Tarasenko who dove to the ice to keep the puck in on the sequence before this. That forced the faceoff that led to this goal.

Now going into the third period, the Blues usually sit back and hope to all that is holy that they don't blow the lead. Not tonight anyway. The team kept playing like they had in the first two periods of the tilt. Which to that point was less dump and chase more defensemen trying to get the puck up ice to their forwards. Dare I say, the Blues looked faster than they had in awhile tonight. Except for Lehtera who had yet another breakaway and got caught at the last minute. But I digress. The Blues add another goal in third period. Stastny notches his second goal of the game and his 14th of the year with a great effort in front of the net. He dived for the puck and was able to get enough of it to get it across the line. 5-1 Blues, because Forever 5 and all.

All this talk about offense, but what about Jake?!?! Well he played a great game. In fact he picked up his first win since the Winter Classic which was exactly one month ago. This save was early in the game, but you could definitely tell that Jake was going to have a good night.

The Blues take the game 5-1 and at least for tonight, made everyone aware that they're not going anywhere. The team played a great TEAM game. Yeah, there were still defensive lapses, but it was the best game they've played in awhile. And no line changes were made. At all. If anything, I think Barbs got some extra ice time at the end of the game as it was 5-1 and all. Here's to the Blues putting another great game together Saturday against the Penguins.

From The Twitter Machine:

In honor of his first win, Coach Yeo gets the game puck. Don't worry coach, I loved your tie.

Here's Yeo's first postgame comments

A lot of speculation around Steen/Hitch relationship. Whatever, here's his postgame comments.

Now, I'm not going to post every video from tonight's ceremony, but I will post this one. Someone was cutting onions...yeah that's it.

Player of the Game;

Bobby Plager. Enough said.