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Observations From Blues' 6-1 Loss Vs. Capitals

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Well, so much for building in the right direction.

The St. Louis Blues thought they had things figured out the past three games, ones in which they were 1-1-1 and conceivably could have won them all.

And then Wednesday happened.

Well …

They fell off a cliff. And it was a hard fall.

It was a complete fail in a 6-1 loss to the Washington Capitals at Capital One Arena in Washington, D.C. on Wednesday.

And on top of the Blues’ ineffective play in this game that dropped their record to 4-8-2 overall and 1-5-2 in their past eight games, Alex Ovechkin scored his 900th NHL goal becoming the first player in league history to reach the feat.

Alexey Toropchenko did score for the Blues, their first shorthanded goal of the season:

But it was an inept first two periods that proved costly.

Let’s look at the game observations:

* Montgomery wanted a physical lineup – Coming off a 3-2 win against the Edmonton Oilers, one might have figured the same lineup against the Capitals, but coach Jim Montgomery inserted Nathan Walker and Logan Mailloux in for Mathieu Joseph and Matthew Kessel to provide more nastiness and bite.

Well, someone forgot to check in at the door that requirements for success in this game was going to take winning wall battles, loose pucks and the like.

The Blues were torched in that department that led to a number of Capitals goals, including the first one, scored on the power play by Tom Wilson; not the actual goal itself, but the three-plus minute shift that lasted in their zone that ended with Colton Parayko, whose shift was 2:59, took a cross checking penalty (Dylan Holloway’s shoft lasted 3:01, Dalibor Dvorsky’s was 2:55):

Also the first of Anthony Beauvillier’s two goals that made it 3-0 at 4:33 of the second period was another case of a lost wall battle that led to his backhand goal into an empty cage.

And then there’s John Carlson’s goal that made it 4-0 at 9:28, a shot from the slot that turned into the Capitals winning another loose puck and being hungrier for pucks that ended Jordan Binnington’s night at four goals allowed on 15 shots, including no saves and three goals allowed in the second period.

And the greatest example of competing for wall battles was on Beauvillier’s second of the night at 16:20 that made it 5-0 when the Blues, this time, were in the offensive zone, puck was in the corner along the wall, lose that battle and the puck (again), the Capitals break out with it, make a hand pass that Mailloux either didn’t see or wasn’t aware of the rule that if he doesn’t touch the puck in that situation and Beauvillier does, the play is dead. But he dives, and it was a hustle attempt, touches the puck rendering it live and Beauvillier beats Joel Hofer from the left circle:

It was just a microcosm of everything that went wrong from opening puck drop to that moment. One team came ready to play with an attitude of wanting to compete, the other didn’t. It’s as simple as that. No compete whatsoever from this group on Wednesday.

* Despite being pulled, Binnington kept team in it in first period, slip-up started downward spiral – Binnington was busy in the first period, not diving from post to post, but with the Blues spending much of the period in their own end, he came up with some solid saves stopping 11 of 12 shots and keeping it a 1-0 deficit.

But on the Ovechkin goal, Binnington got his initial clear into the corner knocked down by the ‘Great 8’ and the puck doesn’t get cleared, it winds up back in the corner and Ovechkin blind backhands the puck from a sharp angle into the net at 2:39 of the second period to make it 2-0:

It marked the third time (first for Binnington) a Blues goalie has been pulled from a game this season through 14 games.

This game marks the seventh time(!) the Blues have allowed five or more goals in a game. That didn’t happen until Game 52 last season.

And on a night in which Binnington tied Mike Liut for most games played by a goalie (347) in franchise history, that's rubbing some salt in the wound. 

* The penalty kill is simply not good – Pius Suter was brought in this year to help the Blues' 28th-ranked penalty kill from last season.

I get one player isn't going to be the do-all, tell-all, but the penalty kill at the start of this season is pitiful again.

After Wilson scored nine seconds into Washington's power-play, oh by the way which was 0-for-13 coming into the game, it was the second straight penalty kill the Blues allowed a goal within the first 10 seconds (Edmonton scored eight seconds into theirs) and 11th time in 14 games the Blues' PK has allowed a goal, including the fifth straight game and eighth in nine.

And it was another case of a skater (Wilson) in front of a Blues goalie waiting for a deflection or tip with little or no resistance.  

The PK was 74.2 percent last year and is now a woeful 67.6 percent. What's amazing is that there's four teams with worse numbers than the Blues.

* Was changing the lineup wise? – I get what Montgomery was doing when he decided to insert Walker and Mailloux into the lineup, some more physicality on the fourth line and a bigger body on the blue line. But was it wise?

This group just came off a solid win with the lineup it had with Joseph and Kessel in it and deservedly winning for the first time in 16 days. I’m not a coach here, but sticking with that same group would allow these players to continue to build in the right direction.

It just looked like it was bad mojo from the outset breaking up a lineup that really worked well together on Monday, one that kept Connor McDavid, Leon Draisaitl and Ryan Nugent-Hopkins all without a shot on goal for the first time in a regular-season game that the trio played together.

OK, you make a swap of Walker and Joseph, but in inserting Mailloux, who Montgomery said pregame didn’t want players sitting for too long, he started the game with putting veteran Cam Fowler there and putting Tyler Tucker with Justin Faulk because of the lack of trust in playing the two guys with the least amount of experience together.

I actually was caught off-guard by the changes at the morning skate, just because of the cohesion that the previous game’s lineup had together.

It’s easy to second-guess now with such a poor loss, but the result speaks for itself.

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