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Observations From Blues' 3-1 Win Vs. Stars For First Home Win

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ST. LOUIS – It was pretty low-keyed around here for the St. Louis Blues after their last home game on Wednesday.

They were lambasted by the Chicago Blackhawks, 8-3, and dropped to 0-2-0 at Enterprise Center and outscored 13-3. Coach Jim Montgomery was wanting to see “more of a competitive spirit by our team.”

Well he got that and then some on Saturday night against a very good Dallas Stars, and the Blues responded with arguably their most complete effort of the season, winning 3-1 for their first home win of the season.

Jordan Kyrou scored his first goal of the season, Jimmy Snuggerud added his third in three games, Pius Suter iced it with an empty-net goal, and Jordan Binnington came within 2:18 of earning his first shutout of the season, but the Blues’ netminder made 18 saves.

“Obviously way better game overall,” Kyrou said. “I thought our habits were great. I thought our effort was great, our compete was great. It’s great to get that first win at home.”

Lets look at Saturday’s observations:

* Best stick game in years? – Well, according to Montgomery, it was, in fact the best game using their sticks to break up plays since a special time around these parts.

“Our sticks were probably the best I’ve seen them since probably the year after the Blues won the Cup,” Montgomery said. “That was a really good year and that team had great sticks. Something we’ve been preaching and the players are starting to do it. Hopefully we can develop that consistently.”

The Stars have plenty of weapons, and in particular, if you allow them to gain a head of steam, especially from their defensemen moving pucks in transition, you will get burned.

The Blues as a group were killing plays, and when the Stars were gaining the zone, the D-men were efficient in not allowing pucks to get to the net, they intercepted seam passes, tied up sticks in front of Binnington and used those break-ups to their advantage.

“We were just moving our feet,” Kyrou said. “We were staying on top, not really diving down and not letting them get too many odd-man rushes, just staying on top of them and good sticks.

“They’re a super dynamic offensive squad. We want to kind of limit them as much as possible and try to take away any sort of speed that they can get. Obviously with the forecheck it kind of helped.”

* Forecheck was highly efficient – The Blues had a great advantage with offensive zone time and a large part of it was due to their forecheck. They got in on the body, and the forecheck and stick work went hand in hand this game.

The Stars were having to chase the puck for extended shifts in the D-zone, and for an efficient team that’s good at turning pucks out, they had their issues handling the Blues on this night.

It helped fuel the two goals scored in the second period when the Blues outshot the Stars 12-5.

“I think it was a big factor, but more importantly, we tried to force too many offensive plays because we had time to make plays,” Montgomery said. ‘Instead of just possessing it and then either finding someone open in the slot five to seven seconds later, we wanted to find someone in the first period right away. But in the second period, I think that might have been our best period of the year so far.”

* Needed a bounce back – Quite simply, the game Wednesday against the Blackhawks was embarrassing for the Blues.

It was a game of pond hockey at its best but for all the wrong reasons. An effort and executed game like that against a top-notch Western Conference team would not have looked pretty.

But the players regrouped, realized it was put up or shut up and they rose to the occasion.

“We knew we needed to respond,” Binnington said. ‘… We’re still building something here. We got right back to work on Friday and now we’re building each day and it was a big response by us.”

Added defenseman Cam Fowler, who had an exceptional defensive game with partner Colton Parayko, “That was a lot better. Obviously we were disappointed with the effort that we had in that last game and even the game before that on home ice. We didn’t come out to play either of those games. Tonight was a lot better overall team effort against a really good hockey team. A good victory for our group moving forward.”

* Kyrou’s goal example of effort paying off – What amounted to be a tight-checking game where mistakes would need to be limited and the first goal would provide to be a huge one, Kyrou took matters into his own hands, and it was the start of the goal that put the Blues ahead 1-0 at 2:27 of the second period that signified the rewarding feeling of making a solid defensive play and turning it into offense.

Kyrou, who had his stick work on par in this game, was able to backtrack into the neutral zone, check the puck back before working up the right side into the zone, cut it back to Brayden Schenn, get it back, ease past Matt Duchene before beating Jake Oettinger low glove:

“ Feels good to get the first one finally,” Kyrou said. “Great play by ‘Schenner’ to get it to me there. I kind of just saw low glove side so I just shot it there.

“Obviously none of us had a great game the other day, including myself. I wanted to try and have a bounce-back game.”

Montgomery was certainly appreciative.

“ Kyrou in particular, his first goal was just an incredible reload where he back-checks and he has his stick on the ice and his God-given ability took over,” Montgomery said.

* Tucker middle net drive on Snuggerud goal – Blues coaches always encourage the defensemen to pinch offensively, and when the Blues got a 3-on-2 breakout, Tyler Tucker knew exactly what he needed to do: act like a forward.

As the defenseman starting the transition, he left the puck off for Pavel Buchnevich while taking his man with him to the net. Buchnevich would get off a shot from the slot, get another attempt that allowed Snuggerud, at the net where he should be, enough wherewithal to poke the puck past Oettinger at 13:52 for a crucial goal and a 2-0 lead:

“It was a really good example of it,” Montgomery said. “We want our defensemen to be active. I actually think that once we get in sync and we get in rhythm, our D-corps can be one of the highest-scoring D-corps in the league. I think we already have a fair amount of goals from our D-corps, but I think it’s going to be more and more. We’ve had a lot of good deflections off their shots.”

* Binnington glove save on Johnston – The Blues had control of the game, but a strong team like the Stars, you knew a third-period push was coming.

If Dallas gets an early goal to make it a one-shot game, it would have been game on.

But when Binnington gloved Wyatt Johnston’s effort in tight to keep it a 2-0 game at 5:35, it just felt like at that moment it would be the Blues’ night:

“He’s a nifty player and I know he can get it up quick,” Binnington said of Johnston. “It just worked out well there. Unfortunately they got one at the end there, but it’s hockey so it was a fun game, fun atmosphere and fans were great too.”

* Suter effort on ENG typified solid team game – The Blues were buckled down after Mikko Rantanen in fact spoiled Binnington’s shutout with 2:18 remaining. That meant that the 5-on-6 group would have to go to work again, and Montgomery had some of his most trusted and reliable defenders on the ice at the time.

Suter was one of them, and his effort along the wall to not only be able to push a puck out of the zone, but fight through Miro Heiskanen before diving and having enough to poke the puck down the ice for the clincher was the icing on the cake of several strong efforts in this game:

“The more we’re getting to know him, the more we realize how smart he is as a hockey player everywhere, and his defensive instincts are really good,” Montgomery said of Suter. “I really liked how well we checked, and it was for 60 minutes. That was a really good team effort. They feel really good about themselves. When you work and you play as five (man units) … our goaltender had to make some great saves, but they weren’t 15. They were less than five.”

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