Blues look to continue building game, hope to do so in front of their mothers

Ryan O'Reilly could only smile when the subject of the mom's trip came up.

What else could the Blues captain do? After all, he was asked about his mom, Bonnie, who apparently is quite the athlete in the family.

"She's a big pickleballer, super competitive," O'Reilly said. "She kicks my ass in the summer all the time. So we'll see. I don't know if I'll have time on this trip to play her, but we go toe-to-toe in the summertime playing. So that'll be really fun.

"We've been talking about this trip so much as she can't wait to get on and she's hoping she can get some pickleball in, see if any of the other moms play."

It's an opportunity of a lifetime for the Blues (5-8-0), who are feeling a little better about themselves lately after winning two in a row on the heels of eight straight losses following an impressive 3-2 win at Vegas on Saturday.

Now's the chance for the players to share their work experiences with their moms, who made it for the remaining two games in this trip, beginning Monday in Denver against the Colorado Avalanche and Wednesday in Chicago against the Blackhawks.

The Blues have done trips in the past with their dads, four of them to be exact and have done quite well, going 7-1-0, but this is the first time that moms will accompany sons on the road.

"Yeah, I’m very excited for it," O'Reilly said. "She's so pumped. ... She takes the games more serious than anyone in the family, even myself. If I lose, I think she's more upset than I am. She might show up with her gear. She might be ready to play if she can, but she's the best, obviously a huge supporter and is so passionate about it, watches every game, every shift and she's just as much a part of it as I am. It's nice to be able to share it with her and give her kind of that inside look at what's going on day to day, what some of the meetings are, what's a practice look like right now and such. She's pumped, she can't wait and I'm really excited to meet a lot of the other moms. It will be great, get us a lot closer."

In all, 21 of the moms made the trip to join their sons. Among the most traveled will be Nathan Walker's mom, Ceri, who traveled almost 9,500 miles from Sydney, Australia and made a stop in Dallas before joining the team in Denver, but that's not even the longest-traveled mom. That distinction goes to Ivan Barbashev's mom Marina, who departed Moscow, Russia and made three connections through Doha, Qatar, Chicago, then to St. Louis before going to Denver -- all totaling over 10,000 miles.

"It's too expensive, I'm not going to lie," Barbashev said with a grin when asked why he didn't charter a plane for his mother. "It's nice. The last time she was here was a couple years ago," Barbashev said. "It's nice to see her to be honest because I didn't have a chance to go back to Russia this summer previously, but they just got here a couple days ago. It's been nice. She just got here. She had three connections and she's going to fly to Colorado.

"... She's here and helps out with the babysitting. She hasn't seen my son for pretty much two years."

The Blues are on business, trying to continue their build after a terribly rough stretch of games that saw them get outscored 38-12 and lose eight straight following a season-opening three-game winning streak. Times are a lot better now after wins over San Jose (5-3 last Thursday) and snapping Vegas' nine-game winning streak. They can only hope having the moms around can bring forth more inspired play.

The moms will be having lots of fun together, however, so this will be different for the players, who are used to having dads around.

"To be honest, I have no idea. Never done a mom's trip," said center Robert Thomas, whose mom Deborah will be among the 21 moms. "The dads like to have fun. The moms are the ones always taking care of the boys when they're younger. It will be exciting to have that time with them."

They can have fun, right?

"I'm sure they can," Thomas said laughing. "I'll be asleep, so I have no idea."

The conversations for the O'Reilly's had to be tough there for a while, since Bonnie O'Reilly takes losses hard, and to put eight of them on her like that, those conversations had to be uncomfortable.

"No it's my mom, she's always so supportive," O'Reilly said. "Yeah, as you know, our moms feel like their sons can't do anything wrong. It's great, though, but I think she's definitely upset. There have been some tough losses and she's a little frustrated, just like I am. We're very similar in a lot of things. I think there's frustration for both of us when we're not having success or not winning, but it's good."

The Blues are just looking at the next game, and another solid measuring stick will be playing against the defending champion Avalanche, which knocked the Blues out of the playoffs the past two seasons, including six games in the second round en route to winning it all last season, and what better way to continue to build than with mom in the building?

But this is a small token of the players' appreciation for the car rides to practices when players were kids, waking up in the wee hours of the morning to do so; going to games, cleaning uniforms, buying equipment, paying for road trips and leagues, etc. 

"Yeah, for sure. It's going to be fun anyway to have some families on the trips so they can fly with us to different cities," Barbashev said. "It's fun. I don't know if there's (been) a lot of moms on the trips before, but it's the first trip for my mother and should be really exciting."

"I think it's an opportunity for us as a group to get closer," O'Reilly said. "You get to meet someone's mom and talk with them, see (where) they kind of come from, their upbringing and stories about their sons, it’s just time for us to come closer. And I think it's great to have that and again, our focus right now is just this next game. We've got to go put another 60 minutes together and get another win. We don't get ahead of ourselves, looking at the trip. But you know, just one game at a time and go from there."

Other mothers making significant trips to North America to be with their sons include Niko Mikkola's mom, Pirjo, who traveled from Finland; Calle Rosen's mom, Marie, who also came in from Scandinavia and Sweden. Remaining moms coming from across the US and Canada include Noel Acciari's mom, Edna; Jordan Binnington's mom, Lindsay; Robert Bortuzzo's mom, Susan; Justin Faulk's mom, Gail; Torey Krug's mom, Cheryl; Jordan Kyrou's mom, Roula; Nick Leddy's mom, Vicki; Josh Leivo's mom, Lee; Colton Parayko's mom, Karen; Scott Perunovich's mom, Susan; Tyler Pitlick's mom, Amy; Brandon Saad's mom, Sandra; Marco Scandella's mom, Sandra; Brayden Schenn's mom, Rita, and Alexey Toropchenko's mom, Yulia.

Missing the trip included moms of Vladimir Tarasenko, Pavel Buchnevich, Thomas Greiss and Nikita Alexandrov.