In a game when two fourth-line forwards score for the St. Louis Blues, one should feel good about their chances of winning, even against the high-powered Colorado Avalanche.
Nathan Walker and Alexey Toropchenko and provided some positive energy for the Blues, who were trying to match a season high fifth straight win and matching wits with the red-hot Avalanche, who were on a six-game heater of their own.
Avalanche-Blues takeaways (3-19-24) (4:00)
But when you're playing against a high octane team, mistakes can be costly, and although the Blues didn't make a plethora of them, they made enough that proved to be costly in a 4-3 loss at Enterprise Center on Tuesday.
"That's what happens when you play a team like that that's very opportunistic and they can jump on your mistakes," Blues interim coach Drew Bannister said. "We made four mistakes in that game. Certainly we made other ones, but mistakes were costly."
It was a game in which the Blues (36-30-3) generated plenty of offense, a game in which they certainly could have won. But mistakes were made at the wrong times and can be magnified at times like this against teams that have the talent to punish you, like Colorado (44-20-5), which has outscored its opponents 31-13 in winning seven in a row.
The Blues, and the entire NHL when playing the Avalanche, can get fixated on doing their best to focus on solely stopping Nathan MacKinnon and with good reason; he came in leading the NHL with 115 points (42 goals, 73 assists) in just 68 games, and the Blues did another good job in limiting him to one assist but he did extend his point streak to 16 games (10 goals, 22 assists). It was Mikko Rantanen, who sometimes gets lost in the shuffle, that punished the Blues on this night.
Instead of doing the usual three-period rundowns as we've done previously at The Hockey News-St. Louis here, let's just go to the key points of the game, highlight them and discuss how important those plays were:
* Rantanen's opener -- When Rantanen made it 1-0 at 6:36 of the first period, if you watch the play, the Blues actually do a pretty decent job of not giving too much time and space to MacKinnon along the wall, and Justin Faulk even bumps him enough to get some disruption in there, but elite players make elite plays, and MacKinnon found Rantanen in the slot for a sublime release into the top corner that Jordan Binnington didn't have much of a chance at.
The only thing here is defenseman Scott Perunovich, albeit not egregious, gave Rantanen enough room to collect and shoot. If he is tighter on the play, perhaps he can disrupt the play enough to not allow the shot.
* Walker's response -- You have to like the Blues' resolve. Colorado has the uncanny ability to bury teams when they feel like they have them down. This wasn't the case here.
Walker's goal tied the game 1-1 at 8:48 of the first, or 2:12 after Rantanen made it 1-0.
It started with a key, savvy breakup by Zack Bolduc, who intercepted a Devon Toews clearing attempt in the Avalanche zone.
In doing so, the Blues were able to keep the puck alive with a cycle by the Kevin Hayes line for a minute before Walker, coming in off the bench when Kasperi Kapanen came off the ice, got a puck from Perunovich, who pinched behind the goal, circled around the right and found Walker, who had acres of ice to step into the left circle and bury a wrister.
"It's always nice when you can help out," Walker said. "It would have been nice to get the win though.
"'Haysie's line did a great job, lots of cycles, wearing them down and it was just a great change by Kapi. I think I got lost a little bit just in the mix there."
* Fourth line keeps the momentum humming -- It was Toropchenko's turn to keep the momentum humming for the Blues.
His goal at 4:44 of the second gave the Blues a 2-1 lead off another cycle play, the puck to Faulk at the right point, a simple wrist shot with bodies there, including Oskar Sundqvist, and Toropchenko crashing the net benefitted from a carom off him past Justus Annunen.
"Yeah I thought we were playing pretty well," said Walker, who had an assist on the play. "We seemed to get the puck in deep and kind of do what we do. It just happened for us tonight."
* Momentum didn't last -- The Blues' momentum was stifled, however, and it shouldn't have.
Former Buffalo Sabre Casey Mittelstadt tied the game 2-2 at 6:41 of the second, or less than two minutes after Toropchenko's goal, off a face-off win. But if you look at the Blues on the play, they the Blues forwards get discombobulated on the play, missing out on coverage in the circle. Pavel Buchnevich gets lost in coverage on the play but Perunovich also gets pinched on the wall by Jonathan Drouin that allowed Samuel Girard to curl the puck back to the circle for a quick shot that Faulk couldn't block.
* Another response -- But the Blues responded again, and this time, they were opportunistic off a turnover.
Brayden Schenn gave the Blues the lead again at 3-2 at 8:43 of the second when Jake Neighbours, who was thrust up on that top line, picked off a Rantanen pass in the Blues zone, leading to a 2-on-1. Neighbours feathered a pass to Schenn in the slot and he wasted little time burying it.
* Not a smart penalty -- Most penalties taken are not good, but some are, especially if you directly prevent a goal.
The one Kyrou took late in the second period categorizes as a bad one.
It wasn't as egregious as some, but it was enough that it was deemed unnecessary.
While Andrew Cogliano was moving into the zone along the wall, he was tripped up by Kyrou at 18:24 of the second.
It led to Rantanen's tying goal at 18:46 to make it 3-3 instead of the Blues leading 3-2 after two.
What got Bannister upset was not only the timing but also a defenseman (Torey Krug) in position to take the puck.
"It was a penalty. It's a bad penalty," Bannister said. "It's a penalty you can't take at that time of the game."
* Another ill-advised, costly mistake -- The Blues simply needed to manage the third period properly, and in order to do so now in a tie game instead of a lead.
They always say making passes in one's own zone is dangerous.
Buchnevich made the grave mistake of it when without duress, he tried forcing a pass into Colton Parayko, it got intercepted by the trailing Valeri Nichushkin, and Rantanen sniped Colorado into the lead 4-3 at 4:15 of the third period.
It was evident that Buchnevich had a safety net right in front of him in Brandon Saad but chose to make the more dangerous attempt even though MacKinnon had that part of the ice clogged up.
Now the Blues were chasing the game, and a team that knows how to win is locking down a one-goal lead on the road, which it did despite the Blues generating ample amount of offense.
"It was a playoff style of game," Blues defenseman Nick Leddy said. "I thought both teams had a lot of chances, both teams did a lot of good things. I look at that team over there, it's a very good team. I thought we did a lot of good things. They just got one more than us."
"Guys played hard, guys competed, guys battled," Schenn said. "That’s a good team over there that has a lot of firepower, a lot of skill. Right there, and unfortunate to not come away with at least one point tonight."
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