Slow starts, whether to begin a game, or the second period, have been a problem recently for the St. Louis Blues, and it's led to other common factors that have led to higher scoring games recently.
The Blues wanted, needed and craved a strong start, especially with their dads in the house for the dad's trip, and they got it.
Their 4-2 win over the Chicago Blackhawks at United Center on Sunday saw a number of factors that helped them to the Blues' third straight road win.
Let's get to the three keys for this win:
1. Establishing tempo early -- The Blues needed to be on their toes early and play a north style of game and they got it. They scored twice within the first five-and-a-half minutes in the game, getting goals from Jake Neighbours and Kevin Hayes in a 2:06 span and fed off the momentum.
They stayed on the front foot and moved to 11-1-2 the past 14 games against the Blackhawks, their fourth straight win in Chicago and 6-0-2 the past eight at United Center, improving to 9-1-0 when scoring three or more goals, 10-0-1 when allowing fewer than three goals.
2. Solid forechecking game -- There were moments, particularly the start of the second period when the Blues didn't manage the puck properly, but when they did, it was solid shifts of extended zone time, retrieving pucks and putting teammates in good positions to score.
The Blues were effective in getting great looks in this game, but Arvid Soderblom made a number of outstanding saves.
3. Binnington bounce-back -- Binnington needed a bounce back game, as we mentioned when THN selected Binnington as our player to watch and he delivered with a solid 32-save performance to improve to 8-1-1 all-time against the Blackhawks.
Binnington saw a lot of pucks and made sure there were no juicy rebounds and played his angles well, was aggressive when needed and played the puck effectively for clean breakouts out of the zone.
And when called upon, Binnington made the necessary saves protecting a multi-goal lead, never giving the Blackhawks a chance to gain momentum when the Blues were ahead 3-1 in the first.
