To call Thursday a huge missed opportunity for the St. Louis Blues would be understating it.
Yes, the Blues have been on a roll and playing well, but they had the stage all to themselves with all their competitors in the Western Conference wild card idle and a chance to pull into a tie for the final spot with the Calgary Flames and Vancouver Canucks.
The Blues came into the game with the Pittsburgh Penguins playing 12 of their final 17 games against teams outside the playoff picture, but this has been their trouble spot in not beating these opponents, and it reared its ugly head again with a 5-3 loss to the Penguins at PPG Paints Arena.
The Blues (31-28-7), who came into the game on a 7-1-2 run (6-1-2 since the 4 Nations Face-Off), also had the chance to move two points ahead of Utah Hockey Club in the standings but give up a game in the standings and remain two points back, now with the Flames having two games in hand and the Canucks and Utah with one.
Zack Bolduc continues his strong play with a power-play goal, Dylan Holloway also scored in the power play and Alexey Toropchenko scored his second goal in three games, but the Blues could not solve a goalie [Tristan Jarry] who was placed on waivers by the Penguins (27-31-10) earlier in the season but improved to 7-1-0 lifetime against St. Louis, and Jordan Binnington (more on him below) was pulled after allowing four goals on 19 shots.
Let's look at Thursday's Three Takeaways:
* Binnington pulled, outplayed by Jarry -- Binnington had been strong his past eight starts, going 7-0-1 in them, including six straight wins with a 2.27 goals-against average, but he was not nearly good enough on Thursday.
With the Blues actually playing a pretty solid overall team game, average goaltending would have been good enough on this night.
On Graves' goal that made it 1-0 2:17 into the game, you can see he lost track of the puck trying to look around to the left point, and teammate Tyler Tucker was there and instead of getting out of the way, could have perhaps blocked a shot, so an argument could be made that someone in front of him could have done a better job. But you'd maybe like to see the back of the skates at the edge of the crease to take away more angle and identify where the puck is. It was Pittsburgh's first shot of the game and only shot they would get for over 10 minutes.
When Timmins scored to make it 2-0 at 2:20 of the second period, you'd like to see Nick Leddy attack the puck carrier and not allow him time and space to move into the right circle, but Binnington was off his angle and didn't look like he was square to the shooter really hugging the post and exposing the far side from a sharper angle.
The third goal by Dewar, a tap-in late in the second at 17:42 was just a missed assignmentafter Bolduc's power-play goal at 11:35 got the Blues back in it, but the goal that saw Binnington pulled, he was beat on the short side on what was changed to a Rust tip from a Rickard Rakell shot from the high slot at 7:15 that made it 4-2, but you'd like a save there, or at least cover up the near side to not give a lane for a tip to get through after Holloway's one-timer from the right circle at 1:26 of the third that made it 3-2 with the Blues' second power-play goal in as many opportunities.
Jarry, meanwhile, made 33 saves and provided the saves needed for a team that was outplayed for most of the game.
* Penguins, minus-40 at 5-on-5, score four -- The Penguins came in allowing the most 5-on-5 goals in the league this season at 163 and were 21st in the league in 5-on-5 goals for at 123, or a minus-40 on the season, which was worst in the NHL.
Yet the Blues were outscored 4-1 in that category on Thursday, and three of those goals came to players that were not named Sidney Crosby, Evgeni Malkin, Erik Karlsson and Kris Letang. They were done in by first-time goal scorers Ryan Graves and Connor Dewar and Conor Timmins getting his third of the season.
Toropchenko's beauty, a coast-to-coast effort that saw him slice through the Penguins like hot butter, cut the deficit to 4-3 at 8:56 of the third period to account for the lobe 5-on-5 goal.
* Not leading the game after one period -- The stats said it all.
The Blues as a team actually didn't play a poor game; they came out like gangbusters and outshot the Penguins 16-5 in the first period, held a 9-2 advantage in scoring chances and had 6:05 of offensive zone time to Pittsburgh's 3:28 and forced six defensive zone turnovers, yet trailed the game 1-0.
The inability to complete the final phase of scoring on Thursday was something that was in great need, and by chasing the game the entire night, despite having a territorial edge for most of the night, was a bas recipe.
Hear what coach Jim Montgomery, Bolduc and defenseman Philip Broberg had to say postgame.
