Instant Analysis: Blues Fall To Lowly Blackhawks 4-2, End Road Trip On Sour Note

CHICAGO – Jim Montgomery’s first words prior to the St. Louis Blues ending their season-opening three-game road trip was the coach wanted to see a response.

Well, he’ll have to wait until the home opener on Thursday.

The urgency was there in the third period and parts of the first that were quite frankly OK at best, but too much inconsistency again, especially in the second period and the Blues dropped their second straight, losing to the lowly Chicago Blackhawks, 4-2 at United Center on Tuesday.

As for the game itself, it was a mixed bag for the Blues (1-2-0), who had some players shine and play well, and others who quite frankly they need more from at this point.

As for the game, let’s take a look …

* McTavish pushes St. Louis ahead late in the first – There wasn’t a ton going on by either team, other than a couple solid scoring chances by each team with Connor McMichael and Frank Nazar each getting stopped on breakaways.

But McTavish was able to get his second of the season after McMichael (we’ll get to him in a moment), was able to intercept a Nick Lardis neutral zone pass, skate into the zone, drop pass a puck to McTavish, who whipped his shot past Spencer Knight on the glove side at 15:38:

The Blues carried the lead into the second period in the Hawks’ home opener and a team that had dropped its first three games of the season, this is a team you should bury.

* McMichael goal overturned, turning point in the game – McMichael thought he had his first as a Blue early in the second, into the second minute exactly, and with the home crowd on Patrick Kane’s return to the United Center was getting quite restless, and it was a terrific play by Colton Parayko, who tied Barret Jackman for second on the franchise all-time games played list with No. 803, skated through a phone booth in his zone, goes coast to coast and makes the play setting up McMichael.

But the Hawks challenged for offside, and Jonatan Berggren, looking at the play in front of him, was called for being in the zone too early. Momentum killed and the Blues weren’t able to re-grab it.

“We were playing pretty well in the second until we actually scored that goal that got overturned,” Montgomery said. “There’s another area where we have to be more disciplined. That was one of three offsides we had. There was another two that were missed. Robert Thomas had a wrist shot that the goalie made a good save, blocker, stick save on in the second, that was offsides too. We’ve got to be more disciplined at the line and be able to play the right way. That’s a big part of the game, staying onsides.”

The Blues should be able to wipe the slate clean and re-grab momentum, and they didn’t. They got sloppy in the period, the Hawks tied it on a Sam Rinzel goal at 5:40 and Anton Frondell put Chicago ahead for good at 7:40 after a missed opportunity by Philip Broberg earlier in the shift to get the puck put of the zone.

“You could tell it deflated us, but that’s just an area that shouldn’t happen,” McMichael said of the disallowed goal. “It’s early in the season, but I think as we grow and we learn from it, whatever’s going on in the game, we’ve got to keep our focus and try and get that momentum back.”

* Top line has to start going – We all know what a lot of the talk going into the season was: having Thomas, Dylan Holloway and Jimmy Snuggerud pick up where the trio left off.

There are moments, but the puck isn’t going into the net for any of them right now, and Montgomery moved Holloway off the line and moved Pavel Buchnevich there and slid Holloway down with Jake Neighbours and Dalibor Dvorsky.

In Holloway’s words, they seem to be forcing the issue and there just doesn’t seem to be that cohesiveness just yet.

“Yeah, we obviously know that we're put out there to produce,” Holloway said. “We want to produce at the same clip that we were last year and I feel like we still can do that. We're forcing it quite a bit and things aren't clicking right now, but we'll definitely turn it around. Yeah, I think we've just got to stay calm, stay patient and things will turn around for us.”

Holloway took accountability for his play, which along with Thomas has produced zero points through three games. Snuggerud has a goal and an assist but an empty-net goal.

“I take accountability on that,” Holloway said. “I haven't been great at all. … I thought some guys tonight had great games, (but) myself, I didn't think I played very well at all. Definitely need to grow.”

Montgomery felt the need to try and change up the chemistry since things weren’t working for the top line.

“I think they have moments where they’re really good and they have moments where they’re not accomplishing much,” he said. “I think a lot of it happens where they’re results-oriented and the longer it goes where they haven’t scored, they’re getting more result-oriented instead of process-oriented. We’ll talk about it for everybody. I think that’s why we’re struggling to score goals is we’re not all on in sync on what the process and how to make people defend over the course over 60 minutes.”

* McMichael, Parayko among top players – In my observation, these were the two best players on the ice for the Blues.

McMichael had a goal and an assist, including a too-little, too-late goal with 38 seconds remaining that made it 3-2:

But he played with poise, played with purpose and affected the game when the puck was on his stick.

This was the kind of game that shows why the Blues acquired him from the Washington Capitals.

“Definitely,” McMichael said on if this was his best game. “I think points aside, I thought I liked my movement, I thought I was making plays and hanging onto pucks. Look to take that into the next game.”

Montgomery said, “In my opinion, he was our best forward. I thought McTavish was good, I thought Buchnevich was good. Berggren had moments. I thought Neighbours was really good as well.

“We had some guys had their best game. (Dillon) Dube probably had his best game as a Blue. (Pius) Suter is just reliable down the middle there. Our D-core offensively did some really good things keeping pucks alive in the offensive zone.”

* Third period urgency was lacking earlier – Forget that the Blues outshot Chicago 13-4 in the third period; they simply played with a purpose, but where was that purpose earlier in the game?

They gained the offensive zone and were able to keep plays alive, keep grinding, forechecking pucks back and creating chances. But pucks just didn’t go in.

“I though the first and third were great,” McMichael said. “We were dictating, we were playing our game, we were dictating play, but kind of fell asleep there in the second. I don’t really know exactly where to pinpoint that, but obviously it wasn’t a good enough job in the second and let the game slip away and it was just too much to come back from.”

Montgomery said, “I thought the first period was pretty good. I thought we generated enough. I thought we passed up too many shots in the first. A little bit of that in the second too, but the first period overall, I liked the way we came out for a road game. I thought we controlled it. They had their opportunities, but they’re an NHL team too. Third period, I really liked our desperation.”

As for the second period?

“Just urgency,” Montgomery said. “Urgency to get to the net, urgency to make them want to come 200 feet. I thought we were being a little too cute and looking for perfect plays instead of just a simple road game, hard, physical.”

* Can’t miss the net 18 times and expect to win – Montgomery felt the Blues lacked a shooter’s mentality and didn’t realize they had missed the net 18 times in the game.

A microcosm for the game was when the Blues missed the net on a one-timer from the left circle, then Adam Jiricek missed the net also from the circle and the puck left the zone allowing Cole Smith to get an empty-netter with 1:09 to play and make it 3-1.

The Blues did score on the power play with McMichael’s goal, but creating shots is one thing, missing the net that often is just too much.

“I didn’t know it was that high,” Montgomery said. “For me, shooting was the last thought for 40 minutes and I think if you have a shot-first attitude, you’re more aggressive and your mindset’s more about attacking the blue paint.”

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