St. Louis Blues 21-22

Tom Timmermann
BUFFALO, N.Y. — Just three weeks ago, the Blues were hobbling along, having won just three of 12 games, and their playoff spot was not quite a sure thing.
Now, riding an 8-0-1 streak, they’re a few days away from securing a postseason spot.
With some help, it could have come as early as Thursday night, but the late Vegas goal that sent its game with Vancouver to overtime on Tuesday extended the Golden Knights’ point total just enough and now the soonest it can happen is Saturday.
The Blues have 96 points and only three teams not in the current playoff picture, Vegas, Vancouver and Winnipeg, have a chance to catch them. The Blues need just one win to keep Vancouver and Winnipeg from catching them, but Vegas can still get to 101 points, so the Blues need a combination of six points, either won by them or lost by Vegas, to clinch a spot. As a practical matter, the Blues probably need only five points because a regulation win and a Vegas loss would clinch the first tiebreaker for them.

But while the Blues spot isn’t official yet, it’s pretty much inevitable. Hockeyviz.com puts their playoff chances at 99.993 percent, meaning that seven times in 100,000 they wouldn’t qualify.

Securing third and avoiding a wild-card spot will take a bit longer. Nashville and Dallas both have nine games remaining and can reach 107 and 106 points respectively, so those chases will continue into at least next week, though a Blues’ regulation win over Nashville on Sunday would accelerate the process.

Some highlights from Blues beat writer Jim Thomas’ chat with readers:

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interesting chat

BUFFALO, N.Y. – For starters, there are the starts.
The Blues have been, over the past two weeks, a very successful team. They have won six in a row. They’ve gone 8-0-1 in their past nine games, 5-1-1 in their past seven road games. They are tied for the second-best mark in the league over their past 10 games.
And if you’re looking for a common denominator in their current six-game win streak, it’s that the Blues have scored first in all of them. Three times they have scored the first two goals. They have trailed at the end of the first period in only one of them, and have trailed by more than one goal only once, against Minnesota, and then for only 4 minutes and 2 seconds.

So the story of the Blues’ late-season turnaround begins at the beginning. In their current nine-game run, they have scored the first goal seven times. In the preceding 12-game stretch, where they went 3-6-3, they scored the first goal three times. The Blues have outshot their opponents in the first period in their past five games (though by slim margins in some cases). The previous five games where they outshot their opponents in the first period were spread out over 11 games.“ I think the key’s all in the start for us,” center Robert Thomas said. “I think we’re a team when we get the lead, we play the right way. We saw that in the third period (against Boston), once we got that lead, we were playing physical, we were playing hard, we didn’t really give many chances at all. So I think starts are huge. And then so many times earlier in the year we’ve been down, so we’re pretty resilient and we’re finding ways to get back into games.

Bennington in goal tonight
Looks good so far

Blues-Sabres tied 1-1 after 1st period
David Perron with the Blues goal on a 5 on 3 power play
A wicked wrister....
Blues had been thoroughly outplayed prior to the power play goal
Will start the second period on another power play

Blues now lead 2 - 1 after scoring on the power play only 17 seconds into the second period
Wow

Blues now lead 4-2 with around 3 - 4 minutes left in second period
Last 2 Blues goals by Tarasenko...
One was a magical.passing sequence by Thomas , Buchnevich and big daddy Vladi scoring
Next was a sport center highlight goal on a breakaway

Blues win 6 - 2
Tarasenko with the hat trick and a career high 5 point game
Robert Thomas with 5 assists



LETS GO BLUES

The Tarasenko/Thomas/Buchnevich line combined for 13 points tonight.

Tom Timmermann
BUFFALO, N.Y. — In the past 17 seasons, no Blue had had 50 assists in a season. In the past two seasons, Blues forward Vladimir Tarasenko had seven goals and played in just 34 games because of multiple shoulder surgeries. In the past six weeks, Jordan Binnington hadn’t won consecutive starts.
Times change.
Tarasenko upped his season total to 31 goals with a hat trick, not to mention his first five-point game, Robert Thomas had five assists to up his season total to 53 and Binnington stopped 35 of 37 shots, several on breakaways, as the suddenly unbeatable Blues overcame some struggles to come away with their seventh win in a row in a 6-2 victory over the Sabres at KeyBank Center that was nowhere near as easy as the score would make it seem.

If confidence is important to hockey players, the Blues are rolling in it now, especially Tarasenko.
“He’s playing out of his mind,” said Thomas, who had the second assist on all three Tarasenko goals. “But we all know Vladi can play like that. We’ve just got to keep going, and we’re going to have to rely on him a lot.”“Work. He’s skating, that’s the big thing, he puts people on edge,” Blues coach Craig Berube said, “driving wide, just speed plays, he’s skating strong and he goes to the net. … He’s leading by example. That’s what I see out there from him. His work ethic and competitiveness.”

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What a display of great hockey by the Blues................................The Thomas , Buchnevuch and Tarasenko line is such a dominant erupt line with some of the prettiest passing plays for goals in recent memory............Thomas is going to be a bigger star than Kyrou , IMHO...........He can do it all with the speed and puck awareness he has ...

Was looking into some stats regarding the Blues having as many 20 goal scorers as they did. With 8 games to go, O'Reilly needs 3 more goals and Thomas needs 2 more goals to reach that threshold, giving the Blues 9 20 goal scorers. Faulk would really have to heat up at the end of the season but he would have an outside shot at it, with 7 more goals in the remaining games and giving the Blues 10 20 goal scorers. Here's what I found involving the Blues (and one of their division rivals) in regards to single season 20 goal scorers:

-Blues and Avs each have 7 20 goal scorers to this point. For the Avs they've already set a single season franchise record for 20 goal scorers with the previous record of 6 being done in back to back seasons by the 95-96 and the 96-97 teams.

-If Faulk got there, it would tie the Blues single season record for most 20 goal scorers in one season. The other Blues team that had 10 20 goal scorers was the 1980-81 team that was led by Wayne Babych with 54 goals but also had guys like Brian Sutter and Bernie Federko with 30+ goals each. Previous Blues team that had at least 7 20 goal scorers was the 1984-85 team.

Jim Thomas
Welcome to the postseason, Blues fans. Phase One has been accomplished.
Perhaps in typical Blues fashion for this season, it was a roller-coaster affair Saturday afternoon before the 26th sellout crowd of the season at Enterprise Center.
The Blues piled up the goals, taking a 4-1 lead after two periods against the Minnesota Wild. But then the Blues squandered 1:41 of a 5-on-3 power play, and back roared the Wild. They narrowed the Blues lead to 4-3, and then sent it into overtime tied 5-5.
Enter Brayden Schenn. The veteran forward buried a rebound of a Pavel Buchnevich wraparound 56 seconds into overtime, giving the Blues a 6-5 victory.

“I was just kind of sitting there waiting if it was gonna pop out, and it did,” Schenn said.
Game, set, match — Blues. Playoff berth clinched. One invitation extended to Lord Stanley’s tournament.
“It feels good,” coach Craig Berube said. “We're in, we're in the dance, you got a chance. Like I told the team, we've got to keep going here. There's lots on the line still. You know, home ice and things like that. So lots to play for still.”
Right now, all the Blues have clinched is a wild-card berth. Next, they’d like to clinch at least third place and avoid wild-card status — and a potential first-round matchup with division leaders Colorado and Calgary. And ultimately, they’d like to finish the regular season in second place, which would get them home-ice advantage in an expected first-round matchup with these same Wild.


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Wild wild west type game ( pun intended )....................................Felt good up by 2 goals...............Felt good up by 3 goals .......felt queasy up by only 1 goal...................felt good up by 2 goals ............................fekt sick to my stomach tied up going to OT......

Felt Great when Schenn hit the game winner , but the D in the 3rd period was a classic "" play not to lose "" stretch of play by the Blues.........Our record lately against the Wild is impressive , but the D has to to tighten up.......................Leddy with blurry vision.....not expected to play tomorrow against Nashville........fingers crossed it doesn't hamper him long .....

LETS GO BLUES

I think I heard the stat earlier correctly but I believe with today's loss, the Wild are now 0-8-2 in their last 10 games against the Blues.

One advantage that Blues do have if them and the Wild end up tied on points is that Blues would have the regulation wins tiebreaker on Minnesota. Blues currently have 40. Wild have 33.

Ben Frederickson
Playoff hockey, it occurred to me Saturday evening while sharing a confined space with a mix of colleagues and strangers turned friends, is kind of like getting stuck in an Enterprise Center elevator.
In the end, the only thing that really matters is emerging victorious.
The Blues did just that in Saturday’s preview of their first round of the Stanley Cup playoffs, and I’m proud to say the 11 of us who spent nearly two hours — it was 1:47 to be exact, as timed by the watch of Post-Dispatch teammate Tom Timmermann — can say the same thing on our end.
Yes, the Blues somehow squandered a three-goal lead in the third period and wound up tied at the end of regulation before beating Minnesota 6-5 in overtime.

And yes, right around the time you all were trying to wrap your heads around how that happened, a good chunk of the media members who were headed back up to the press box to try to write about how it happened were wondering, collectively, why the freight elevator used for express trips between the press box and the bowels of the arena got to the top, then stopped, with the doors opening no more than a sliver.
Suddenly the Blues softening their chance to really put their skate down fully on the opponent they are almost guaranteed to meet in the first round seemed like a less important topic than … um, help?

Tom Timmermann
Defenseman Nick Leddy is questionable for the Nashville game on Sunday after taking a high stick under the left eye in the second period Saturday.
“His vision’s not very good right now so I don’t think he’ll play tomorrow, but we’ll see how he is overnight,” Blues coach Craig Berube said.
Leddy was behind the Blues net when Minnesota forward Nicolas Deslauriers caught him with his stick under his visor. Leddy immediately fell to the ice, holding his face, and soon was helped off by trainer Ray Barile, and went down the tunnel. He did not return to the game.
The Blues have two extra defensemen on the roster, Niko Mikkola and Calle Rosen, and Rosen had been playing regularly prior to Torey Krug returning from his hand injury. Leddy had been paired with Justin Faulk. Leddy’s absence for the second half of the game meant increased ice time for the rest of the unit, with Faulk playing 26:22, his fifth-highest total of the season.

Forward Jordan Kyrou, who has just one goal since March 6, was dropped to the fourth line while Nathan Walker moved into Kyrou’s spot on the third line alongside Brayden Schenn and Ivan Barbashev. Kyrou played with Logan Brown and Dakota Joshua and got just 10:45 of ice time, a season low. He had been averaging 16:35.

Kyrou also lost his spot on the power play, though Berube did put him out there for 33 seconds during the Blues’ four-minute power play in the second and third periods.

Here are the highlights from our weekly chat with St. Louis sports fans.
Q: If Vladimir Tarasenko wants to stay should we expect a contract extension this summer? If I were Army I would extend the offer, if his agent refuses then time to trade him regardless of his assumed desire to stay. We can't lose him without compensation.
A: All of Tarasenko's body language suggests that he wants to stay. He is healthy, playing well and winning. He is on a dynamic line with two guys who pass him the puck as much as possible. He has lots of friends on the team and he has been a fully engaged teammate. Much has changed since last summer. If he stays and signs another contract here, he will get his statue next to the other franchise icons.

If the Blues believed they had a contender for 2022-23 (and I expect management would feel that way), then they could use Tarasenko as a rental player if he doesn't sign an extension. Contenders pay a high price to rent players with expiring contracts for the stretch run. This would be a full-season rental, something the team has done many times before with players on expiring deals. In the salary cap world, teams never lose high-paid veterans for nothing. If the player leaves as a free agent, that

Ben Frederickson
Albert Pujols went to a Blues game last week. The crowd lost it. I wonder if Vladimir Tarasenko noticed.
Here was a Cardinals legend back in St. Louis for a powerful, emotional reunion with fans in our sports-obsessed city. Pujols has to wish he would have never left. He came oh so close to admitting that when he arrived at spring training.
“The thing is, I can’t go back,” Pujols said beneath the Florida sun. “All I can tell you is, I’m excited to be back . . . Whatever happened 10 years ago, it happened . . . But I’m excited to be back. I felt like, yes, I might be wearing a different uniform, but I felt like I never left.”

Tarasenko and the Blues still have time to decide a shared future is best for both.
They have the rare chance to benefit from a powerful reunion without a split.
About as unpredictable nine months ago as Pujols and the Cardinals coming back together was the notion of Tarasenko having the kind of season he’s having, and having the kind of season he’s having for the Blues.
The forward and the team were not on the same page, and that is an understatement. Tarasenko had requested a trade. His agent had stirred the pot, pressuring the team to make a move by airing grievances about everything from how the team dealt with his client’s past injuries, to the Blues’ decision to make Ryan O’Reilly the team captain. There were big enough questions about what kind of player Tarasenko would be after multiple shoulder injuries that the Seattle Kraken passed on taking an unprotected Tarasenko in the expansion draft. Blues general manager Doug Armstrong never got a deal he liked. He made a surprising decision instead. Tarasenko would start the season with the team. All involved would see how things played out.

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good read

Blues - Preds tied 1-1 after 1....................................

Blues lead the Preds 8-2 after 2......................................

Blues score 7 goals in the second period..............................7 GOALS !!!!!!!!!!!

wow..................................

I'm on a river cruise on the southeast coast and just saw the score....wow is right.

whatahack said:

I'm on a river cruise on the southeast coast and just saw the score....wow is right.

Click to expand...

7 goals in the second period is a franchise record for goals in one period........

And only Schenn's first goal was on a power play. Rest were at even strength.

I really don't like the Nashville fans. I would have killed myself if they won a cup before the Blues

whatahack said:

I'm on a river cruise on the southeast coast and just saw the score....wow is right.

Click to expand...

Don't know what it is about the Blues scorin' in Nashville, but I like it, I love it, I want some more of it.

Holy Jumpin
Thank You
Thank You
thank You

Blues win 8-3..........

Next game Tuesday at home vs. the Boston Bruins , then off for a 4 game road trip to close out the remaining road game schedule...

LETS GO BLUES