Robert Thomas was asked if he remembered the last time he scored in five straight games after doing so Thursday in a 2-1 win against the Arizona Coyotes.
"Do you have the answer," Thomas asked.
At the time, when told, 'No,' he said, "No idea."
Well, it was during the 2017-18 season in junior hockey with the London Knights of the Ontario Hockey League to be exact, and Thomas will look to keep his NHL career-high streak alive where it all began 10 days ago when the Blues (6-5-1) face the Colorado Avalanche (8-4-0) today at 8 p.m. (BSMW, ESPN 101.1-FM).
Thomas has five goals and an assist in his five-game point streak and was the lone goal scorer when the Blues fell at Ball Arena, 4-1, on Nov. 1. He scored what was the game-winner on Thursday against the Coyotes and matched Vladimir Tarasenko, who was the last Blues player to score goals in five straight games when he had eight from April 9-17, 2022.
Known more as a passer throughout his career, Thomas has taken on more of a role of goal scorer early in the season with the Blues, who have won three of four, having their challenges of putting pucks in the net.
"I know he likes to shoot it," Blues defenseman Justin Faulk said of Thomas. "I don't think people give him enough credit for him shooting maybe because he doesn't have as many goals as everyone else. I've played with him on the power play with him for a while too and he likes coming off that half wall, off the flank and shoot the puck. ... He's not scared to shoot it, he never has been. As of right now, they're going in for him a little bit earlier than usual. Hopefully he keeps doing it and it keeps going in. He's got a good shot."
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Well, let's talk about the albatross in the room -- again -- and it's the power play, that at some point, the Blues will desperately need, no badly need, to get going.
It only gets worse with each passing opportunity without scoring on it, and it all came to a head on Thursday when it went 0-for-7, including a full two-minute 5-on-3 that produced just two shots, lots of over-handling of pucks, bad passes, easy zone clears by the Coyotes and ill-advised zone entries by the Blues.
"You know what I saw was, which was a bad thing [Thursday], but generally not, I think we just saw guys that wanted to be the guy," Blues defenseman Torey Krug said. "Over-handling and not executing with the puck, not taking that extra step to make a good pass. I was at fault for that one time. It's up to that group, obviously important players for our team. You've got to execute in those situations and we didn't. We can obviously take the blame for sure. We practiced it this week for the first time in a while, so when you practice it, you've got to make sure you're ready to go."
The Blues are 1-for-35 for the season, which equates to a whopping 2.9 percent on the season and dead-last in the NHL, and probably getting tired of answering questions about how it gets fixed.
"Being a little more direct is probably is the easiest answer," Faulk said. "It's definitely over-thinking at this point, I think guys are. You're looking for balance, you're looking for something trying to make that extra pass to kind of force it into the net in a sense, make sure it goes in, but I think you just simplify, you shoot the puck and you try and get rebounds and put them at the net and recover them again. And really just trying not to lose momentum. It's a tough stretch obviously. We'll keep working on it. It's not like we're going to stop trying to figure it out."
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Some nuggets going into tonight's game:
* Blues coach Craig Berube is one win shy of 200 with the franchise and would join Joel Quenneville (307) and Ken Hitchcock (248) as the only coaches in Blues history to reach 200 or more.
* Forward Kasperi Kapanen will dress in his 400th NHL game tonight.
* Jordan Binnington gets the start tonight. He is 1-4-0 with a 3.43 goals-against average and .895 save percentage in his past five starts after starting the season 2-0-1 with a 1.20 GAA and .959 save percentage.
* The Avalanche have lost four of six after starting the season 6-0-0 but one of those wins came against the Blues.
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The Blues' projected lineup:
Pavel Buchnevich-Robert Thomas-Kasperi Kapanen
Brandon Saad-Brayden Schenn-Jordan Kyrou
Alexey Toropchenko-Kevin Hayes-Jakub Vrana
Sammy Blais-Oskar Sundqvist-Jake Neighbours
Nick Leddy-Colton Parayko
Torey Krug-Justin Faulk
Marco Scandella-Scott Perunovich
Jordan Binnington will start in goal; Joel Hofer will be the backup.
Healthy scratches include Robert Bortuzzo, Tyler Tucker and Nikita Alexandrov. The Blues report no injuries.
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The Avalanche's projected lineup:
Jonathan Drouin-Nathan MacKinnon-Mikko Rantanen
Riley Tufte-Ryan Johansen-Valeri Nichushkin
Miles Wood-Ross Colton-Logan O’Connor
Kurtis MacDermid-Fredrik Olofsson-Tomas Tatar
Devon Toews-Cale Makar
Bowen Byram-Samuel Girard
Jack Johnson-Josh Manson
Alexandar Georgiev will start in goal; Ivan Prosvetov will be the backup. The Avalanche have no healthy scratches. Artturi Lehkonen (upper body) is week to week and will not play. Andrew Cogliano (upper body) is day to day and out tonight.
