MARYLAD HEIGHTS, Mo. -- What may have looked soft at the time, turned into a crucial turning point for the St. Louis Blues in their 4-3 loss against the Colorado Avalanche on Tuesday, ending St. Louis' four-game winning streak.
Jordan Kyrou was whistled for tripping Andrew Cogliano at 18:24 of the second period and the Blues holding a 3-2 lead.
Cogliano was chipping the puck along the right wall and Kyrou was in place to perhaps deliver a hip check but instead, Cogliano maneuvered around the backside of him and Kyrou stuck his skate out causing the infraction, as light as it was, it was still an infraction.
Just 22 seconds later, Mikko Rantanen was scoring the second of what turned out to be a hat trick to tie the game 3-3 and instead of leading after two, it was a tie game.
Blues interim coach Drew Bannister said postgame Tuesday that, "It's a penalty you can't take at that time of the game."
He didn't necessarily double up on his comment after practice Wednesday but explained again the ramifications of it. But there were also other factors, including Pavel Buchevich's defensive zone turnover that ultimately led to the game-deciding goal, also scored by Rantanen.
"Going back to the penalty, I don't think there's any good penalties, especially when it ends up in the back of your net," Bannister said. "There were other mistakes made by other players on our team. That wasn't the difference maker. But certainly at that time when you're up 3-2 late in the (period), it does change a little bit of the momentum but I thought in the third period, we came out and still played a pretty solid hockey game and we ended up making one mistake and it would up in the back of our net."
In a 4-2 win against the Anaheim Ducks on Sunday, the coaching staff made two changes to the power play personnel, including moving Brayden Schenn into Kyrou's spot on the left flank, that led to three man-advantage goals, and on Tuesday, Jake Neighbours was moved up to Kyrou's spot alongside Thomas and Schenn and Kyrou was slotted with Buchnevich and Brandon Saad.
"As for Jordan, two games ago, we just felt our power play was stagnant at that point and we wanted to make some changes," Bannister said. 'He was one of the players that came off it and we obviously had success and we wanted to stick with that last night. Just bumping him down that one line, I felt at that time we needed a bit more from both lines and I thought putting 'Jakey' up there against their top line would allow us to be a little bit more direct and open up Jordan a little bit more because he had more ice. They skate well and they make you pay for your mistakes. I thought the adjustment was good. I thought 'Jakey' handled that very well and I thought that line played really well together."
Neighbours remained with Thomas and Schenn at practice Wednesday and Kyrou, who has just two goals the past 14 games, was with Buchnevich and Saad.
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