How does a team respond when they learn the fate of one of their top players missing considerable time due to injury?
That’s the dilemma facing the St. Louis Blues on Thursday against the Toronto Maple Leafs at Scotiabank Arena.
But the Blues didn’t cower in this one. In fact, they did exactly what they said they would have to do in light of Thomas missing as much as six weeks or longer with a fractured right ankle: they all grabbed the same rope and pulled on it. Nobody on the 20-man game roster Thursday was above the other. The Blues got a collective effort from everybody, including those playing for the first time this season: Oskar Sundqvist and Scott Perunovich.
Let’s take a look at my biggest takeaways from this game and why the Blues were as good as they were, arguably their most complete game of the season to improve to 5-3-0:
* Exceptional forecheck — The Blues were going to have to tur this game into a muck-and-grind kind of game. Coach Drew Bannister said there was no way the Blues would run-and-gun with the Leafs and try to out-skill Toronto.
Even with Thomas in the lineup, that would have been an impossible feat.
So what did they do? Their puck placement was on par, but the forwards were the hunters. They forechecked and retrieved pucks as well as they have all season.
And when they got it, maintaining it in the offensive zone was crucial.
Just look at the goals scored in the first.
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Jordan Kyrou must have had Leafs defenseman Chris Tanev in a tizzy spinning the veteran around before feeding Philip Broberg for the shot from the point with traffic in front (Pavel Buchnevich).
And then on the first of two from Dylan Holloway, look at the work Sundqvist and Alexandre Texier do along the walls, winning the puck over to Brandon Saad, who finds a wide open Holloway with the Leafs severely caught out of position. But it’s the wall work that allowed the play to happen.
Same thing with Texier’s first goal as a Blue in the second to make it 3-1.
Watch Kyrou and Buchnevich go to work as the F1 and F2 after the puck gets put into the offensive zone, causing chaos among the Leafs defensemen. I the end, Kyrou’s no-look pass finds Texier’s stick and his wrist shot was pristine.
* Shot blocking mentality/good sticks — When Colton Parayko blocked his fifth shot barely a minute into the second period, he nearly had as many as the Leafs had for the game.
It was clearly evident the Blues were ready to pay the price for a team that likes high shot volume.
And look at the hustle and stickwork Neighbours culminated by Neighbours making it 4-1 early in the third period:
Parayko (7) and Justin Faulk (5) accounted for 12 of the Blues’ 23 blocks. When your two big dogs on defense are sacrificing like that, it’s best for the team to follow suit, which it did.
* Binnington being Binnington — And last but not least, the Blues’ last line of defense was a brick ‘Woll.’ And it wasn’t Dardenne Prairie’s own Joseph Woll. Although Woll, making his season debut tonight, did make some brilliant saves, Binnington was a cool cucumber in net making 40 saves, including 30 the final two periods.
When the last line of defense is in peak form, it tends to filter throughout the rest of the team.
It was a terrific start to the road trip, and now the Blues need to continue the same plan Saturday against the Montreal Canadiens.
