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Observations from Blues' 3-2 Win Vs. Oilers

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ST. LOUIS – Boy, did they need that.

It looked ominous, like a franchise-tying eighth consecutive defeat, but the St. Louis Blues showed some resolve, got a little puck luck, some clutch goaltending from Jordan Binnington, a first NHL goal and a victory for the first time in 16 days.

Pius Suter’s go-ahead goal with 1:23 remaining in regulation capped off a two-goal rally by the Blues, who ended a seven-game losing skid with a 3-2 win against the two-time defending Western Conference champion Edmonton Oilers at Enterprise Center on Monday.

Dalibor Dvorsky scored his first goal in the NHL in his fifth game, Robert Thomas had a goal and an assist in his return after missing four games with an upper-body injury, and Binnington stopped 24 shots for the Blues (4-7-2), who were 0-5-2 their past seven games.

“We needed it, but I think we’re a process-oriented team,” Blues coach Jim Montgomery said. “We believer that if the things that we believe, we have to be good at, whether it’s habits or details or certain parts of our process of the game, winning net front battles. And then the results that come from that is Grade A chances and then game management was really good tonight. And that belief leads to good results. For me, this was the third good hockey game in a row that we’ve played, and if we keep playing like this, we’re going to in a lot of hockey games.”

They were finally able to shed the gorilla on their backs despite Connor McDavid becoming the fourth-fastest player in NHL history to reach 1,100 points with two assists. McDavid only trails Wayne Gretzky, Mario Lemieux and Mike Bossy in that department.

Let’s look at Monday’s game observations:

* Congratulations to Dvorsky, and his goal was clutch – It was definitely coming, and we predicted it here that Dvorsky’s first one was on the cusp.

Down 2-0 on goals by Jack Roslovic (PPG) and Andrew Mangiapane, the Blues didn’t cower down and go away.

They got a late power-play in the second period when McDavid upended Colton Parayko, and Dvorsky made them pay.

His one-timer from the right circle when Justin Faulk put it on a platter for him has been on display the first couple games, but this one found the bar and down short side on Calvin Pickard at 16:08:

“Obviously it was awesome,” Dvorsky said. “Nothing else to say. Great pass from Faulk there. Just tried to shoot it and I'm happy it went in.

“To be honest, I wouldn't care if I kicked the puck in or shoot it. The first goal is the first goal. I'm happy it went in this way, but whatever, first goal, doesn't matter how I scored.”

What it did was bring a bit of a lifeless crowd into the game needing – and looking – for something to happen. They got it, and the Blues channeled their energy and momentum in the right direction because Thomas would tie the game 2-2 at 18:38.

“That’s a massive goal for us,” Thomas said. “You see the way we just kept on rolling after that goal. Some you need a big power play. That was a wicked shot. Definitely should get a lot of credit for really changing the tide of the game.”

The Blues weren’t necessarily playing bad, but they were victims of an unfortunate Oskar Sundqvist holding penalty late in the first period that the Oilers turned into a power-play goal by Roslovic eight seconds later at 18:38, and then after a Parayko shot was blocked at the blue line, a fortuitous carom into the neutral zone led to a 4-on-2 odd-man rush where Mangiapane made it 2-0 at 2:27 of the second period.

The Blues, once again, were missing some high Grade A scoring opportunities, and they had three in succession prior to Mangiapane’s goal from Suter, Brayden Schenn and Philip Broberg but couldn’t convert.

“On the bench, I felt we were pretty confident,” Montgomery said. ‘Yeah, we’re down 2-0 and yeah, they’ve made some high-end plays, but we had three odd-man rushes before they scored the goal to make it 2-0. So that gave us a lot of positive talk on the bench and then the power play came through.

“Great job by the kid cranking it home. What a shot. You get your first goal, that’s one you want to talk about. I went bar down on a one-timer. Pretty cool.”

Dvorsky and Jimmy Snuggerud were bookend flanks on power-play unit No. 1. Get used to seeing it now and into the future, because these two have tremendous shots and they’re not afraid to use them.

“Coaches, all the guys (preach shoot) as well,” Dvorsky said. “When I have the opportunity to shoot, I should do it. It was probably a good thing I shot that puck.

“We played a great team game, so I felt like our overall team game kind of got the fans going. I just try to do my best every time I’m out on the ice. I get so much help from my teammates here. I love being here and playing here.”

* Puck luck – The Blues received some good puck luck on Thomas’ tying goal when he finished off a play from a sharp angle that hit the near post, off Pickard’s stick and his body and back into the net to tie the game 2-2:

Good, solid shifts following the Dvorsky goal led up to the goal and momentum scoring twice late in the second.

“A little lucky, off the post, off the goalie and in,” Thomas said. “We’ll take it. … Sometimes you get those bounces and that was a big one.

“Even their second goal, we come out that period, we’re playing well, we have a ton of chances, they block a shot and end up with a 4-on-2 and they’re able to score and we just keep going right back at them. For me to jump in the lineup and have the guys playing like that, have that mentality, it wasn’t too hard for me.”

* Suter right place, right time again – The Blues didn’t have a ton going in the third period but defended pretty well.

They had just three shots on goal until Suter made it 3-2, but Suter and Schenn each had another glorious scoring chance early to give the Blues a lead.

So it’s only fitting that Suter, who Montgomery had stated previously is always in the right spots on the ice, worked himself back into the play after Schenn found Parayko for a one-time shot from the blue line that Suter corralled and deposited past Pickard with Oilers defenseman Evan Bouchard lurking nearby:

“I’m seeing him teeing it up,” Suter said of Parayko. “He’s got a hard shot. I saw a guy I think trying to block it, so kind of was in the way of both sides. I just stayed there and hopefully the bounce and the rebound goes there.

“I’m just kind of trying to be around where I was before. Both sides of the puck. Some guys are faster, so you’ve just got to be in a good position.”

And he was again, and Montgomery explains why.

“He knows where he scores goals from the hash marks down to the goal line and he finds his way there,” Montgomery said. ‘He has impeccable timing. When you’re his size, you can’t plant yourself in front of the net like a Jake Neighbours or like a [Alexey] Toropchenko can. You have to get there when the puck’s arriving. That’s what happened on the game-winning goal. It was a real good shift by that line, who I thought was a really good against the [Leon] Draisaitl line tonight. They got that game-winning goal, which was huge for us.”

* Thomas return important – It’s no secret that the Blues missed their No. 1 center, for obvious reasons. But not only does Thomas add scoring for the Blues, he also draws the top assignments – like he did against McDavid on Monday – and takes many of the important draws.

“Obviously massive,” Suter said. “He’s such a good player. Top speed, confidence, holds on to pucks. He just gets us going.”

There’s just certain parts of the game Thomas touches that other skaters on this squad can’t, and it was obvious from the opening puck drop.

“Well, the puck possession would be one,” Montgomery said. ‘The offense that he generated tonight, that line was really good. But the important thing was I was matching him up against McDavid and for the most part, they hit a knob on a 4-on-2 and that’s the only goal they gave up. Went the other way 4-on-2 and they made a bang-bang play. Theirs went in, ours hit a knob, and that’s why I like the resolve (and) resilience that we had after that. When you’re talking about Thomas, when you lose your No. 1 center and you get him back, you see the difference. Talk about people being deployed; he played 19 minutes, our second-line center played about 17, Dvorsky played about 15 and our fourth-line played about 12. That’s good balance.”

Thomas and linemates Snuggerud and Pavel Buchnevich held McDavid without a shot on goal for just the 28th time in his 726 regular-season game career.

“’Pary’ does a great job,” Thomas said of Parayko. “It’s hard. He’s got a ton of speed. It’s impossible to really contain him. We’ve got one of the best shutdown D’s in the league and he always steps up and is big in these games.”

* Broberg accepts challenge – Montgomery said this of containing McDavid despite the two assists.

“I thought that we were very aware when he was on the ice,” Montgomery said. “We didn’t really shut him down; he had two assists. He’s kind of like Michael Jordan, you keep him under 30 and you’re happy, right? But that’s what generational players do. I thought that we were able to negate his speed at our blue line by our up-ice awareness of marking him up.”

But when McDavid was able to gain the zone – as he often does with his speed element – it seemed as if Broberg was there waiting for the challenge, either killing a play, standing up to the talented Oilers center or just neutralizing him and not giving him the time and space.

“I thought that this morning Broberg was looking for that challenge because we showed a lot of clips obviously of him and Draisaitl,” Montgomery said. ‘We have an acronym MDM, most dangerous man, and I added a ‘W’ for [McDavid] because he’s the most dangerous man in the world in our sport, and when I looked up and I said it, ‘Broby’ was like really intense, like looking forward to the challenge intense, which is what you want from your players.”

Broberg finished with an assist, a plus-1 rating in 21:38 with three shots on goal, two takeaways (both on McDavid) and two blocked shots playing alongside Parayko.

“It’s an element (a shutdown role) that we’ve talked to him about starting this year,” Montgomery said of Broberg. “He’s on the first PK. That goes hand-in-hand with that kind of shutdown role. Now that he’s with Parayko, I don’t know if it stays that way, but that’s a good pairing right now and I like the pairing of [Cam] Fowler and [Justin] Faulk the way they’ve been moving the puck, but we’ll see how the pairs continue to evolve here. But I guarantee you Broberg and Parayko will be playing together in Washington (Wednesday).”

* Binnington’s key, timely saves – It’s no secret that looking at the numbers, they haven’t been good for Binnington and Joel Hofer.

But on Monday, Binnington followed up Hofer’s strong start Saturday in Columbus and did what was needed of him to give the Blues a chance: make those saves in key moments.

There was a sequence where Binnington made consecutive stops, one with the blocker on Vasily Podkolzin at 7:33 of the second, then Noah Philp from the right circle three seconds later before finishing a sequence of saves off at 8:10 on Mangiapane from the slot. If any one of those get in, it’s 3-0 and likely game over.

“Those two saves after it went 2-0 were huge,” Montgomery said. ‘It really elevated our bench. A lot of people on the bench, a lot of players, I remember someone saying, ‘Binner’s fighting for us.’ That’s what he does. He gives you the confidence that you’re never out of a game because of the competitive spirit he has in the crease.”

“He had some big saves,” Thomas said. “There was one on Mangiapane right in the slot. Those are saves that make a huge impact on the game and that’s what we’re used to from ‘Binner.’”

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