Ducks-Blues takeaways: A slow, stagnant start turned into altering special teams personnel switch in St. Louis' 4-2 against Anaheim; Thomas nets two, Neighbours scores one to help in fourth straight win

Ducks-Blues takeaways (3-17-24) (5:54)

Against a lesser opponent, one in which had lost five in a row and shut out twice, outscored 15-2 on its current four-game road trip that ended on Sunday.

What could possibly go wrong?

Well, by all indications in the first period when the Blues had three power-plays and came away empty-handed, then allowed the first goal to the Anaheim Ducks, it was a case of skating in what seemed like quicksand on Sunday.

But an altered power-play in the third period worked to perfection when Robert Thomas scored twice, and Jake Neighbours added one when the Blues scored three times with the man advantage and doubled up the Ducks, 4-2, at Enterprise Center on Sunday.

"It's nice. Tough back-to-back," Thomas said. "Two games in under 24 hours. Those games are always tough, especially when they're kind of waiting on you. We found a way to win and that's the important thing. I don't think it was our best game by any means, but when you find a way to win, you can't complain."

Let's dive into Sunday's takeaways:

* First Period -- The power play could have made a difference for the Blues in the first period when Olen Zellweger was whistled for slashing at 2:39. There was sufficient zone time, but the Blues just couldn't seem to penetrate the middle of the ice and came away empty-handed.

Then came a Frank Vatrano minor for slashing Kevin Hayes at 9:41 when Hayes and Kasperi Kapanen dangled the puck on a string to finally induce a second man advantage.

But again, there was nothing in the form of a final finish against the 30th-ranked penalty kill in the league.

"We felt it didn't give us much energy," Blues interim coach Drew Bannister said of the power play. "In fact, it probably took energy away from our group in the first period."

And true to form, the coach was right. 

Troy Terry scored off a rebound past Joel Hofer at 13:41 to give the Ducks a 1-0 lead, their first goal in 171:50 dating to last Tuesday against the Chicago Blackhawks. It came after the Hayes line got caught running around in the zone, and Terry pounced on a juicy Joel Hofer rebound off Pavel Mintyukov's sharp-angle shot from the bottom of the left circle.

There was a sequence not long after when defenseman Justin Faulk got picked in the neutral zone giving Anaheim a 2-on-1 but the Ducks' Vatrano fanned on a bouncing puck.

But St. Louis would be given another reprieve when Urho Vaakanainen was called for high-sticking Brayden Schenn at 17:20.  

The strangest thing occurred then when Thomas shot a puck eight seconds into the man advantage that broke defenseman Cam Fowler's stick. When Anaheim forward Jakob Silfverberg gave his stick to Fowler, he was left without one. What he did after was something else.

Thomas moved out to the right point, and Silfverberg followed him there basically shadowing him the entire time while the Blues were essentially on a mini 4-on-3. Thomas stayed out of the play and moved along the wall down to the corner too trying to help the Blues gain an edge with a man up and more ice to work with.

It went on for nearly a minute until Lukas Dostal gloved Pavel Buchnevich's shot with 1:33 remaining.

"I hadn't seen that before," Thomas said laughing. "I really didn't know what to do, so I just kind of stood in the corner and let a 4-on-3 happen. I don't know if it's the right play or not, but I think they had a couple close looks. 

"Interesting. We were having a conversation the whole time he was just standing there. It was pretty funny."

Talking about what?

"I was just trying to figure out what he was doing," Thomas said. "He seemed to have a good laugh at it. I guess it worked out for him."

But it was another empty power play, despite the Blues having a combined five shots on the three in the opening period, but they trailed 1-0 and outshooting Anaheim 9-7.

Needless to say, the energy from the game against the Wild wasn't there in the opening 20 minutes.

* Second Period -- There wasn't a ton going on in the third period either. The Blues weren't sharp in their zone to start it off. Zone exits were sloppy, plays weren't being made. It was a mess at the outset.

Torey Krug took the Blues' first minor, a slashing minor, at 9:10, but the Ducks didn't too anything terribly dangerous on it.

Hofer, who had a nice game with 26 saves, would come up with a solid glove save on Leo Carlsson cutting through the middle on that power play.

There just wasn't a good pace to the game for the Blues. The game was stagnant, the crowd was subdued. Something needed to happen.

Enter Zack Bolduc, who injected life.

The 2021 first-round pick would chip a puck into the offensive zone, and instead of allowing someone else to get in on the forecheck, he obliged and used his speed to win it from Ducks defenseman Jackson LaCombe, allowing the Blues to sustain zone time.

In the end, Krug would get a pass from Bolduc, turn and throw a wrister that Dostal didn't glove cleanly and Hayes was there to pounce on the rebound to tie the game 1-1 at 14:56.

"I thought we had a couple good shifts before that, but I thought Zack started to skate a little bit more," Bannister said. "... We moved guys into certain positions, different lines, but he seemed to start moving his feet. It did seem to get everybody going at that time for whatever reason, but he was one guy that started to move his feet a little bit more and create a little bit more on his puck and start making plays."

Bolduc did seem energized on his ensuing shifts but took an unfortunate slashing penalty with 46.1 seconds left in the second. 

It would be a crucial time for the Blues, who needed to win a third period after tying the game 1-1 after two and outshooting the Ducks 19-18. They seemed to get some jump from the Hayes goal, thanks to Bolduc.

* Third Period -- The Blues were getting through the kill as well as possible, and it ended up being better than they thought when Leo Carlsson, the second pick in the 2023 NHL Draft behind Connor Bedard, tripped Faulk at 59 seconds.

There would be 15 seconds of 4-on-4 and then the Blues would take on a crucial power play for 1:45.

Recognizing how stagnant things were with it in the first period, the coaches switched personnel, moving Faulk in for Krug with that top unit and inserting Schenn into Jordan Kyrou's spot on the left flank.

It worked when Thomas made it 2-1 at 1:53 when Schenn would reverse a puck back to Faulk off the left wall, Faulk was looking for Thomas, but Buchnevich tipped it to him, and Thomas used Neighbours screening Dostal to wrist a shot in from inside the right circle in the high slot.

"Sometimes you get stale," Thomas said. "We haven't been too good lately. It was nice to get rewarded. I think Jake did an incredible job in front of the net and was a big factor in all three of those goals."

Bannister added, "I think we felt after the second period that we needed to make adjustments on the power play and just change it up to see if we can get some life on our power play."

Anaheim's penalty troubles continued when LaCombe was called for holding at 5:52, and Neighbours would cash in for a 3-1 lead at 6:12. He would be in his spot, parked in front and tip Schenn's wrister from the left circle past Dostal.

"I think it's effective," Neighbours said of his 17th goal from inside the dots or the slot. "It's tough for a goalie to react when pucks are changing direction right in front of them. I'm trying to get better at it and work at it. I'm kind of lucky. I was trying to tip it down and it went up. I'll take the lucky bounce. That's 'Schenner' just being a smart shooter. He sees it's the goalie, can't really see the release and just puts it in a god spot. I got a lucky bounce."

And it would be a trifecta of minors for the Ducks in the third, this time on Max Jones for holding at 8:23, and Thomas would get his second of the game at 9:33 to make it 4-1 when he put a shot-pass into the crease looking for Neighbours' stick but it caromed in off LaCombe's stick.

"Just more direct," Thomas said. "I felt like we moved the puck well, just couldn't finish on those last plays in the first period and we were able to do that in the third.

"[Neighbours] makes a living around the net. He's hard down there, he's open, he screens. He does a lot of little things that make all the world. I think he deserves a lot of credit for the power play's success tonight."

Faulk agreed.

"Not just on the net front and the power play, he plays hard, right," Faulk said. "He's willing to go there, he's willing to do the hard things out there. Not everyone likes to play that way, but he does. It's a little bit of an old-school mentality but he's willing to go there and he's getting rewarded for it. It's kind of a thankless job at times.

"... We knew we had to be aggressive. We had a few that didn't go our way. Just had to get something going."

The Blues were managing the game well from that point on and were on their way to a fourth win in a row. With a three-goal lead, the Blues were looking to get Thomas his hat trick, Neighbours his second when the Ducks pulled Dostal with 2:00 left.

Heck, even Joel Hofer, who made 26 saves, had a moment there to see if he could get a goalie goal but momentarily fumbled the puck.

"He was actually in the gym complaining nobody would hard-rim it, so that he could get out there and try and shoot one," Neighbours said of Hofer. "If I was the other team, I wouldn't hard-rim it either. He gets out there quick and he's going for it."

And despite Anaheim pulling the goalie and scoring late when Terry one-timed a shot from the left circle with 7.5 seconds left to make it 4-2, it was another win to stay within four points of both Vegas and Los Angeles and also move within seven points of Nashville, which occupies the first wild card.

"It's a good feeling, but there's no satisfaction at all," Neighbours said. "We still got a lot of work to do and we're still chasing and we still need points. It's kind of a one game at a time attitude, keep trying to grab points when we can get them and just take it game by game. If we do our job, hopefully we'll sneak in there."