The Blues failed on Friday night, allowing the Dallas Stars to take a 3-2 strangle hold on their series and the Blues playoff lives. As has been the case with most of the games, either team could have won Friday night but Ben Bishop made more quality saves and the Blues served up more pizzas and breakaways though yet again, defensive zone coverage and hustle getting back doomed the Blues.
The Stars took an early lead less than three minutes into the game. The play degenerates as Robert Thomas makes a weak play along the wall and then gets beat back into the defensive zone.
Once the puck gets deep in the Blues zone, they should still be in good shape as they have numbers but Pat Maroon and Alex Pietrangelo get caught watching and Tyler Bozak stops moving his feet, making a last ditch sweep with his stick that is unsuccessful.
Jordan Binnington’s positing and movements on this play are less than optimal, not that it may have mattered. Binnington is very strong on straight shots, including breakaways but I bet he spends the summer working on movements and saves for shots coming off passes.
The Stars would push it to 2-0 a little over six minutes into the 2nd period when Esa Lindell’s shot would deflect in off Jay Bouwmeester. The real issue here though is the continued mismanaging of gap closure. Nobody closes the gap on Lindell.
On plays like this, the Blues look like the 2018 team rather than the 2019 team we have seen for the last four months.
Jaden Schwartz would cut the lead in half about eight and half minutes into the 3rd period after a Ben Bishop miscue partially as a result of the pressure put on him by Thomas.
Overall the game was very odd with both teams seeming to abandon all notions of defense in the 2nd period and the Blues defends spending the day as Domino’s drivers, delivering a lot of pizzas to the Stars’ forwards. The Blues shot domination of 39 to 27 was irrelevant as the high danger chances were not that different.
While Binnington made a number of good saves, Bishop was a little better. While the Blues had a little luck (Bishop misplay), the Stars puck luck was better with the goal off Jaybo and Perron’s shot clearly hitting the bar.
Coach Craig Berube is being coy about lineup changes but Carl Gunnarsson was really poor on Friday and I wonder if he gets moved out as a result. It appears that David Perron is playing through an injury, shoulder or arm and that Ryan O’Reilly may be as well though perhaps O’Reilly’s gas tank is just running low from all the tough minutes he has played this season.
The line blender really seemed to hurt in the last couple of minutes and through various parts of the third as the passing and spacing was definitely off, often times having three players in the save area, taking away passing opportunities.
I though Joel Edmundson was the best defenseman on Friday night and expect him back in the lineup. Jaden Schwartz was the best forward.
Bishop returned to form (97.4%) and the Stars won the special teams battle, winning the game. Guess who had the Stars forward with the most ice time? Jason Dickinsin. Not one forward hit even 19 minutes.
I must say that I haven’t loved the minute management from Coach Berube in these home games, nor the matchup management. It’s one of the few criticisms of Berube that I think may be fair.
The Blues need to stay aggressive on the forecheck but smart about that aggression. They need to make sure they are calm but aware in their own end as the last game saw too much chasing and confusion or puck watching. On the offensive side, the secondary forwards on each play need to do a better job of getting to the net. Rebounds were available on Friday but nobody was working hard enough to get a real net front presence for most of the game.
Something to watch is that Ben Bishop appeared to be laboring at times late in Friday's game. Perhaps there is a nagging injury? This wasn't a good sign for the injury prone Bishop.
Blues fans are hoping to hear Gloria two more times this week while the Stars hope to mute the Blues radio.
NHL Champions for Charity
Given that the Predators pulled out the division title, all be it not without some controversial officiating in the last couple of games, Best Buddies Tennessee
https://www.bestbuddies.org/tennessee/ is the beneficiary. Best Buddies Tennessee is dedicated to establishing a volunteer movement that creates opportunities for one-to-one friendships, integrated employment, leadership development and inclusive living opportunities for individuals with intellectual and developmental disabilities. As a side note, I recently got to experience a Best Buddies even in the St. Louis area that was led by the Eureka high school football team. It was a lot of fun and brought a lot of joy to those involved.
It’s a great day for hockey.
St Louis Blues Blogger • 
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