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St. Louis Blues Morning Links: Blues Outplayed, Find Way To Win
Good morning Blues fans! The St. Louis Blues did not have a great game in Philadelphia, but they managed to get two points. At this point in the season, that’s what is important.
The St. Louis Blues managed something rather impressive given their season this year. They got outplayed and still managed to find a way to win.
That has been so hard to come by in 2016-17 that you just assume the Blues are going to lose if they don’t play at 100%. There have been enough games the Blues played well and lost, so it has been even tougher to expect them to win if they didn’t play great.
That is exactly what happened when they faced the Philadelphia Flyers though. The Blues only had one shot in the first period against the Flyers.
Let that sink in for a moment. One shot on goal in an entire 20 minute period. That’s incredible and it was not simply due to great Flyer defense.
The Blues were just not trying on offense for some reason. I had a discussion on Twitter and completely agreed, the Blues looked like they wanted to only defend and hope for some power plays.
The problem with that is that takes up way too much energy. If you are constantly defending, you are constantly chasing the game and that takes a lot out of the legs.
Additionally, the Blues kept taking penalties. Carter Hutton was bailing the team out left and right and they rewarded him with chances to play shorthanded.
That is nowhere near a winning recipe. The old St. Louis penalty kill returned though and they looked solid and cohesive as a four man unit.
The power play could not have the same said for it. St. Louis had a four minute powerplay and did not even look like scoring.
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In the end, it took a lucky play for the Blues to score. St. Louis got a fortunate deflection of Paul Stastny‘s skate and then the Blues managed to double it in the third period.
Kenny Agostino was rewarded for his efforts in his Blues debut. Agostino had to feel out the game a little more than you would like for a guy who does have double-digit game experience, but he eased in.
The Blues managed to score on an Agostino breakaway, which was great to see. The way his goal went in was normally something you’d see happen against the team.
Is this the moment we might look to and say the Blues turned a corner? It’s way to early to even think anything like that.
We’ve seen other performances where we thought they figured it out and then it turned south again. Maybe this can be different since the Blues did not play well and still won. We’ll see.
Here are your St. Louis Blues Morning Links to get your day started off right.
Whether you believe the rhetoric or not, Mike Yeo made an interesting comparison to how the Blues won it. Whether it was on purpose or not, the Blues bench boss said the team used some rope-a-dope tactics. (STLToday)
Personally, I appreciate Ken Hitchcock’s time in St. Louis and think we will look back on it fondly after time. That said, the coach may have been turning a blind eye to social media because he was grateful for the unwavering support of Blues fans. I guess he managed to keep most the hate at bay. (Post-Dispatch)
One of the biggest fears about Kenny Agostino’s promotion was whether he could continue his production from the AHL. Maybe it is just a blip, but for one game it looked like he was not shying away from the moment. (Arch Authority)
The Blues may have beaten the rest of the league to the punch, but there was always going to be other coaches let go. While St. Louis started the fall, the next domino to drop was that of the Boston Bruins. (ESPN)
The Penguins took the Blues to school a few days ago even with some significant injuries. The rest of the league may want to be on the lookout because the Pens might not be shorthanded much longer. (NHL)
Have a great day Blues fans!
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