St. Louis is eight points back of second wild card in Western Conference with 26 games to play
MARYLAND HEIGHTS, Mo. -- It was obviously a much-needed hiatus for the St. Louis Blues, and for the rest of the NHL for that matter.
The last time the Blues were on the ice was Feb. 8 in that crazy 10-round 6-5 shootout win on home ice against the Chicago Blackhawks that left them with a 25-26-5 record, good for 55 points, or eight points behind the Vancouver Canucks for that second wild card in the Western Conference. But also two points behind Utah Hockey Club and five behind the Calgary Flames.
The Blues are technically a point ahead of the Anaheim Ducks, but the Ducks have two games in hand.
For a team that can't string together three straight wins, the only team in the NHL that hasn't done it this season, that in itself makes this task as daunting as ever. But even should the Blues, who come out of the gates with back-to-back home games Saturday and Sunday against the Winnipeg Jets -- who by the way have won eight straight -- and Colorado Avalanche, are able to string together a lengthy winning streak of their own, they're going to have to go something like 20-6-0 or 19-6-1 just to reach a targeted number of 94-95 points, and that may not be enough.
"You just have to realize you take it one game at a time and go from there," Blues captain Brayden Schenn said. "Obviously we have a lot of work to do to climb up the standings, but at the same time, you don’t look at the final 26 games. You’re worried about the first little weekend here against two good teams and kind of go from there."
Which is why the Blues hit the ice running -- or skating -- on Tuesday afternoon at Centene Community Ice Center, bodies refreshed and searching for a high compete level rather quickly.
"Today was about getting back to feeling the puck, some skill work in the first 25-30 minutes and the last 30 minutes was all about competing and getting back to working," Blues coach Jim Montgomery said. "We feel our consistency needs to come from a higher level of competing on pucks consistently.
"I was pleasantly surprised with how hard they practiced today because sometimes a lot of it is, ‘We’re going to feel our way back in.’ But our guys jumped right in, and the battle level was very impressive. Good first day."
A good first day highlighted by a battle drill specifically in which Russians Pavel Buchnevich and Alexey Toropchenko, two large bodies, came together along the wall, and Toropchenko won, knocking Buchnevich on his keister.
The two got up, tapped each other for the hard instance and received loud stick taps from teammates.
"It’s part of the practices, stay hard on each other and make your teammate and yourself better through the hard battles," Toropchenko said. "... We must build that competitive level way higher. It starts from practices. We’re going to do that and we’re going to be better."
"That was the highlight of practice," Montgomery said. "The awesome part was they went at each other so physically hard, as hard as some of the hits that we’ve seen in games when we’re playing, and they had smiles on their face and they were loving being out there working and being physical. We need to replicate that again tomorrow and the next two following days before we start up Saturday."
There's no margin for error for the Blues,
"We’ve just got to focus one day at a time and just focus on this week coming back and getting back and preparing for the first game," Blues forward Jordan Kyrou said. "Just every day coming and [Montgomery's] got drills for us to do out there. Just making sure we compete during all those drills and just trying to keep it consistent every day.
"It’s a nice little break, a nice little reset. Hopefully we can try and go on a little run here."
There's really no other choice.
"I’m trying not to focus on the outcome," Montgomery said. "I feel that we need to focus on our consistency and our preparation daily and our results will take care of itself, and that’s where we are right now. We know we’re in a little bit of a hole (and) we’ve got to win a lot of hockey games. But if our mind goes to results and we lose our first game, it could spiral the wrong way. We want to be able to focus on the process that allows us to have success and that consistency of competing, winning goal line races, winning wall battles, having numbers at nets. We feel if our focus is on those things, results will take care of itself."
