ST. LOUIS -- Plenty went right for the St. Louis Blues in their narrow 2-1 win against the Vancouver Canucks at Enterprise Center on Thursday.
Well, at first, it didn't go so well. The Blues haven't been good when allowing the opponent to score first (2-16-1 coming in) and the Canucks were scintillating when scoring first (19-4-1) themselves.
It was the start of a gauntlet of a month for the Blues (19-17-1), who are facing some of the top teams in the league, including the Canucks (24-11-3) twice.
Without further ado, let's break down the three-period takeaways and dissect how this one shook down:
* First Period -- The Canucks took a few body blows from the Blues the first couple shifts, but when they gained the offensive zone, it was Vancouver's third line that got it on the board early.
Conor Garland found a soft spot due to the Blues' miscommunicated coverage by the Kevin Hayes line and wired a wrister past Jordan Binnington for a 1-0 Canucks lead just 1:57 into the game.
The Canucks had played a puck behind the net won by former Blue Dakota Joshua, who found Teddy Blueger in the right corner. With defenseman Marco Scandellaand forward Kasperi Kapanen converging, Alexey Toropchenko also drifted down low to confront Blueger on the play leaving the high slot open. Hayes stayed on the opposite side and likely didn't communicate for Toropchenko to stay and take away the high slot.
Blueger found the coverage mistake and slipped a pass into Garland, who made no mistake.
The Blues were able to settle in and instead of falling behind 2-0 or 3-0 and be out of it early, they bore down.
Toropchenko had himself a couple glorious scoring chances, one of which he couldn't quite corral Kapanen's shot off the right wall, a planned play off the pads of Thatcher Demko to the opposite side of the goal but he fumbled what would have likely been a goal had he gotten it clean at 7:27.
The Blues earned the game's first power play when Nils Aman was whistled for holding at 12:08.
The Blues' top unit sustained plenty of zone time, and it was a result of winning face-offs in this game, and Pavel Buchnevich had the best chance off a rebound in front but pushed his shot wide after Canucks goalie Thatcher Demko made an initial save on Jordan Kyrou before Buchnevich missed what seemed like a gimme at 12:33.
Jake Neighbours, who had himself a game with a game-high eight shots on goal, made a nice defensive play leading to a rush up ice, even getting around Quinn Hughes before being stopped trying to power to the net from the right edge, getting off a pair of shots at 16:30 and 16:29.
The Canucks left the period up 1-0 but the Blues held an 11-9 edge in shots.
* Second Period -- The Blues got off on the front foot early in the second, and Colton Parayko tied the game 1-1 on a well-executed play at 4:22.
Scott Perunovich chipped a puck off the wall on his backhand up ice, and Buchnevich, Kyrou and Thomas all touched the puck, with Thomas finding Parayko coming into the right circle. The defenseman wired a wrister off the far post and in past Demko.
Buchnevich thought he had a glorious scoring chance when he fought off Quinn Hughes to get off a shot by Demko that hit the cross bar and out, but the Blues forward was called for high-sticking Demko at 5:05 instead.
The penalty kill did its job, limiting the Canucks to zero shots.
They stayed on the front foot, and Hayes was able to hold onto a puck high in the zone before inducing a hooking call on Canucks defenseman Tyler Myers at 11:51.
Again, good zone time for the Blues but they finished 0-for-2 on the power play with just two shots, and Hayes didn't exactly have his finest moments with two mistakes that led to zone exits.
The Blues spent a lot of the time trying to get the puck to Brayden Schenn in the bumper spot, and Vancouver was all over it. Schenn has not gone without a point in 11 straight games, which is his worst stretch of his career.
Nathan Walker, called up from Springfield of the American Hockey League on Wednesday, nearly broke the tie when he broke in in front of Demko on his backhand with 5:42 remaining but was stopped. It was nearly an Aussie Aussie Aussie, Oi Oi Oi moment.
Blues defenseman Matthew Kessel, who played 17:59 in his fourth NHL game, almost had a costly gaffe when he was picked off to the right of his net by Blueger, but Binnington closed the net off and made the save keeping it a 1-1 game through two, and the Blues holding a 21-16 edge in shots.
* Third Period -- The Canucks wanted to take charge early in the third period and there were at least three quality scoring chances they produced that if they simply hit the net, they grab the lead.
Brock Boeser had the best chance at 3:11 in the left circle but whistled his shot wide, and Nils Hoglander had another one at 5:11 and Filip Hronek followed up at 5:15 missing the net after Binnington made consecutive saves on pucks in tight.
"I thought we missed a glorious chance in the third," Vancouver coach Rick Tocchet said. "We have four or five missed nets. We’ve got to hit the net on those shots."
He wasn't wrong.
But Robert Thomas, as money as the Blues have had this season, named a Western Conference All-Star for the first time in his career during the game tonight, was the recipient of two great passes, by Buchnevich and Scott Perunovich to find him in the right circle, and be beat Demko bar down for a 2-1 lead at 8:08.
"Good play by a lot of people," Thomas said. "'Buchy' makes a great pass over to Scotty. He threw off their whole team. 'Rouzy' drives by the net, goalie can't see it and he over slides and I just found it over the blocker. A lot of guys did a lot of good things for that goal."
The Blues were never really threatened much the rest of the game, and they nearly put the game away with the empty net but Hughes was able to get a stick on Neighbours' effort from long range.
"This is hard. That's a real good hockey team over there," Blues interim coach Drew Bannister said. "I think they were 8-2 going into tonight's game. We stuck with it. It wasn't a perfect game for us. I didn't think we had a great start. I thought 'Binner' was outstanding for us tonight when we needed him to be. I thought there were times in the first and the third where we could've done a better job managing the puck. I really liked our second. I thought we came hard. We got some good forechecking shifts. I thought we controlled the play more in the offensive zone than the other two periods, and we were able to get that one goal. And then we turned the page on the games that we saw over the past weekend where we might've been the better team against Colorado, but we didn't find a way to win that hockey game. Tonight, we found a way to win a hockey game against a really good hockey team.
"Moving forward, this is one game, and Saturday (against Carolina) is another game that is going to be another good test against a very good hockey team that's playing very good, and we're going to have to be ready for the challenge."
