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Observations From Blues' 4-3 Overtime Loss Vs. Kraken

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ST. LOUIS – It was deja vu all over again for the St. Louis Blues.

They thought they had a game won, until they didn’t, and then fell in heartbreak in overtime, against the Seattle Kraken on Saturday night, falling 4-3 on a Shane Wright game-winner.

The Blues (5-8-3) were stunned on a Chandler Stephenson goal with 1.9 seconds left in regulation that needed league assistance for a potential goalie interference that wasn’t called before falling.

The Blues led 2-0 on goals by Dylan Holloway and Dalibor Dvorsky before Jordan Kyrou scored in the third period on his return to the lineup after being a healthy scratch Thursday that gave them a lead again.

Joel Hofer made 26 saves.

Let’s go right into Saturday’s observations, and we have some thoughts:

* The league truly doesn’t even know what goalie interference is – The subhead here speaks for itself. I don’t think the league has a clue what its own rule on this is, and that’s why the players, coaches, executives, anyone involved has no clue what goalie interference is.

When Chandler Stephenson scored from the high slot to tie the game 3-3 with – at the time – 0.5 seconds left in regulation, it momentarily stole a point away from the Blues, who know this feeling all too much going back to Game 7 of their first round playoff series.

But the pause on the ice was somewhat confusing, then officials made a call that there was a league-initiated challenge on the call.

Upon seeing multiple shots of the play, Seattle forward Jordan Eberle is by his own accord, in the crease, and his left skate sliding through the top of the crease, makes direct contact with Hofer’s stick, preventing him from having use of it along with his blocker.

Hofer got beat on that short side shot, and his stick and blocker were clearly impeded from using it.

The league review took some time, and I have no clue why it did, but when referee Gord Dwyer came back and confirmed it was a good goal, it left a building speechless. It left a team speechless and quite frankly, those that once again felt confused about a rule feeling even more convinced nobody knows what the rule is:

“We were certain on the bench that we were going to win the game because the criteria for goalie interference is first the player has to be in the blue paint,” Montgomery said. “Then he has to impede the goalie from playing his position. His left skate hits our goalie's stick, and when he hits the goalie's stick, his arm has to come in. He cannot use his blocker because of Eberle's foot hitting his stick and turning his arm in. The puck goes in on the blocker's side. For us, it meets all the criteria for goalie interference. We understand we’ll get a ruling from the league on it, but for us, it meets all the criteria for goalie interference. If it was not, if this was at the five-minute mark, we would have challenged it. That’s how certain we were.”

Montgomery said they would get an explanation from the league, but it’ll be no more than this laughable reasoning:

When already told what it said, and asked how could they come to this conclusion, he said, “I don’t know. I do wonder if they have a goaltender, an ex-goalie in the room because our goalie coach and the goalie explanation to me, I’m not an ex-goalie, is that it does impede your ability to use your blocker.”

Here is the rule itself, Rule 69.3:

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Hofer wasn’t certain of the rule, only saying, “I mean yeah, my stick got hit there. I just didn't know if the guy was in the crease or not. I saw on the jumbotron that he was, so I don't know what the rule is. I thought the rule was that if the guy was in the crease, then it's no goal or if he stops me from making the save. I don't know what their thought process was on that, but yeah, I'll leave it at that.”

Hofer was also told of what the league ruling was, and was confused.

“I mean, like, I don't know. If my stick is there, who knows if it hits my shaft, who knows if it hits my blocker,” he said. “I guess nobody knows. I thought the only ground rule was if he was in the crease and he did. Like I said, nobody knows, but you can't be making assumptions if it's going to hit me or not. Nobody knows.”

Hofer looked at the replay and like the bench, felt confident it would get overturned.

“I'd say I was over 50 percent that I was confident, but yet I was still trying to stay focused because nobody really knows nowadays,” Hofer said. “I feel like every other week there's something that there's always a debate on it. That's kind of how the rule is.”

And what makes this even more perplexing is that on Oct. 30, Montgomery and the Blues won a challenge against the Vancouver Canucks that negated what would have been an Evander Kane go-ahead goal with just over three minutes remaining in regulation that was wiped out by what wasn’t nearly as egregious as this one was:

“It looked like a similar play against Vancouver where the guy kind of took our goalie’s stick and they disallowed it,” Kyrou said. “I thought it was going to be no goal, but I guess not.”

It’s quite obvious players are as confused as anyone with the grayness of goalie interference calls, especially ones where a team is quite certain the call will go their way.

“A little bit. I don’t know the exact definition of the rule, but I’ve seen calls go the other way in that kind of situation,” Holloway said. “A foot in the crease takes away the stick, I feel like I’ve seen that called the other way before. It’s definitely a bit of a gray area and just unfortunate that we couldn’t get that call.”

* Blues never had puck in OT – When Stephenson won the opening face-off from Robert Thomas, the Kraken would never lose the puck again.

The Kraken would reload a couple times, but the Kraken would keep possession of the puck the entire 1:57 until Wright potted the game-winner and send the Blues home stunned:

“Definitely tough,” Holloway said. “I have faith in our group that we have good enough players, good enough forecheck that they can get the puck back. It’s tough not to start with it, but it’s just stuff to learn from.

* Failure to close a game out again, iced puck three times with chance to hit empty net – Regardless of how the goalie interference call came down, the bottom line is the Blues did not close the game out.

They had three chances (Hofer, Thomas and Nick Bjugstad) to hit the empty net, and Hofer was behind his and narrowly missed to the left with 2:06 remaining, but it was the first icing.

Then Thomas was on the defensive side of the red line but Kraken defenseman Brandon Montour got a piece of his opportunity with 1:49 remaining.

And Bjugstad spun and hurled a chance down the ice from three-quarters length of the ice that also missed the empty target with 1:31 remaining, also an icing.

“We iced the puck three times I believe and we had two opportunities to end the game at the red line,” Montgomery said. “It’s an open net. The game should be over.”

The third icing came off the stick of Philip Broberg that brought the face-off back into the Blues’ zone with 11.8 remaining.

Since it was an icing, the Blues could not change, and Bjugstad had to take the face-off against Stephenson, which he lost. Montour grabs the puck, skates down the lefthand side, slings a backhand through the crease, off the boards and back out towards the right point retrieved by Matty Beniers, who finds Stephenson in the high slot for the shot and score.

“Obviously a call didn’t go our way,” Holloway said. “We thought that Eberle’s skate took out ‘Hofe’s stick there. We thought that based on the rule, that could be goalie interference, but obviously the refs didn’t see it that way.

“As a group, we’ve got to bounce back from that. Can’t be giving up a goal that late in the game. That’s on all of us on the ice. We got into a habit of that last year, so we’ve got to clean that up.”

* Explain how and why players “take our foot off the gas” – This has got to be the most confusing and baffling comment of taking the foot off the gas.

The Blues were ahead 2-0 after the first and were in a good position. Then were completely outplayed in the second period that enabled the Kraken to tie it on goals by Ryker Evans at 8:28 and Eeli Tolvanen on the power play at 15:25.

The Blues were outshot 15-5 in the period and seemed to be chasing the puck most of the period, and when they had it, were quickly giving it right back.

“I think they played to the goal line and we turned the puck over way too much,” Montgomery said. “At the offensive blue line, we had 10 turnovers in the second period. That’s us not willing to work offensively for opportunities. They had better gaps than they had in the first period. They played better. We played into their hands. Got to get better from it.”

But when you ask players why a period or a segment of the game sequence got away, it should drive a coach nuts when he hears something similar to this:

“We kind of just took our foot off the gas,” Kyrou said. “I think in the first we were really skating and we were winning a lot of our puck battles. I think in the second, we kind of just stopped skating and we stopped competing a bit.”

Added Holloway, “First period, I thought we were good. Second period, we kind of took our foot off the gas a little bit. Third period, I thought we were playing stingy hockey and guys are battling and trying to get that two points. There’s a lot of good from that game, but also a lot of stuff we need to work on.”

So it begs the question, why on earth would you take your foot off the gas when you were working so hard and so well. It just makes no sense when players say that. Why would you want to allow a team to gain momentum and build back up when you had them down? It makes no sense, and this isn’t just picking on these two players; they just happen to be the latest to say it, but countless other players in that locker room and around the league have said the exact same thing.

* Kyrou’s response was good – Kyrou was going to be determined. You know in the back of his mind, he was upset with getting healthy-scratched.

He played 16:00 and led the Blues in shots (four) and attempts (six). His goal at 5:10 of the third period put the Blues ahead 3-2 and was holding out to be the game-winner until the end:

“Just felt good to give our team the lead,” Kyrou said. “It’s tough we couldn’t pull that win out today.

“I’m just trying to do what I can to help my team win tonight. … I thought I was skating well. I thought I was competing. I thought I was attacking the net more.”

Kyrou played with Thomas and Brayden Schenn on Saturday.

“I thought he was great tonight,” Holloway said of Kyrou. “He possesses a skill ability that not a lot of guys have. He’s definitely a valuable guy in our room. It was great that he got that big goal for us there in the third. I like ‘Rouzy’ a lot as a player. I think he’s awesome. He bounced back in a good way.”

Kyrou had a similar response like Mathieu Joseph had Thursday in a 3-0 win over the Buffalo Sabres.

“He led us in shots, he led us in shot attempts,” Montgomery said of Kyrou. “I thought he was skating well. I thought he responded with what could have been the game-winning goal.”

* Blues came out with some fire – The Blues played with pace and aggressiveness in the opening 20 minutes and gained a 1-0 lead on Holloway’s goal at 5:30 off a good read intercepting a pass in the slot of the offensive zone:

Then when Dvorsky tried hitting Jimmy Snuggerud for a redirection goal in front on the power play at 9:40, Dvorsky was credited with the goal after it caromed in off Adam Larsson’s stick:

“Good first, poor second, third was even,” Montgomery said. “We did some good things in the third. I thought from the eight-minute mark on, we didn’t really give them much. We had a chance to end the game with the (Alexey) Toropchenko chance to make it a two-goal game at the net front. It was a back-and-forth NHL game.”

* Hofer was sharp again – Regardless of the outcome, Hofer had himself another solid outing.

He was especially sharp to open the game and despite allowing two goals in the second, he kept the Blues tied in a period when they were outplayed by a wide margin.

It's the third straight strong start for Hofer, despite allowing four tonight.

“I've just got to find one extra save,” Hofer said. “We battled hard. Yeah, that one stings, thoug

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