Capitals at Blues Recap

Game Highlights:

First Period - Absolute track meet in the first period. The Blues and Caps traded chances on both ends of the ice. One of the best chances for the Caps was a 3 on 1 breakaway. Ville Husso was able to make a great save on Brett Leason to keep the game scoreless.

Unfortunately for the Blues the Caps scored moments later. The Capitals won the face off and rimmed the puck around the boards. Aliaksei Protas got the puck off the boards and over to Daniel Sprong. Sprong snapped the shot on net and beat Husso. 1-0 bad guys.

The Blues tied the game later on in the period. Jordan Kyrou played the puck to Robert Thomas. Thomas skated around for a moment and then found an open Torey Krug. Thomas couldn’t have made a better pass to Krug by the way. You just want to frame it as perfect as it was. Krug skated in a little closer. Krug fired on net and scored his 6th goal of the year.

Shots at the end of one were 10 for both teams. Thomas’ assist was his 23rd of the year. Kyrou had the secondary assist which brought his total up to 21. I think the kids are alright.

Second Period - The Blues put the stop to any shenanigans after the first period track meet. Nine minutes into the frame Pavel Buchnevich scored giving the Blues the lead (spoiler alert) for good. Buchnevich won a puck battle and got the puck over to Ryan O’Reilly. O’Reilly made a cross ice pass over to Marco Scandella. Scandella then found Buchnevich in the middle of the ice. Buchnevich fired a rocket on net that Ilya Samsonov wasn’t gonna stop. Buchnevich notched goal number 12 of the year with that one. Hey thanks Rangers you nerds.

Blues took a 3-1 lead with around three minutes to go in the period. Justin Faulk fired a hard shot on net. Samsonov gave up a rebound chance that Oskar Sundqvist was there to bury. Sundqvist’s goal was his second of the year.

And that’s all for the second peri-OH MY GOD IVAN BARBASHEV SCORED WITH .7 SECONDS LEFT. The Blues took advantage of some sloppy Capitals play. Buchnevich got his name on the score sheet again with the assist. Goal number 13 on the year for buzzer beating Barbie.

The Capitals actually outshot the Blues 9-6 in the period. That worked out well for them huh.

Third Period - Buchnevich clearly just wanted to see his name all over everywhere tonight. He squashed any chance of a Capitals comeback (or Blues collapse whichever you prefer) with an empty netter from the parking garage.

The Blues killed all three of the Capitals power play. They held Alexander Ovechkin to just three shots on net. A much needed win after whatever that was that happened against the Penguins. Next up for the Blues is Dallas on Sunday afternoon.

Tales from the Tweet Machine -

Husso sits (or is out due to injury or whathaveyou) for long periods of time and still comes in and puts on a great game.

Shut down pair for the Blues tonight? Colton Parayko and Niko Mikkola.

Chief’s thoughts on tonight’s win.

Torey Krug’s post game comments.

Wow.

And finally....