MARYLAND HEIGHTS, Mo. – The ending to the St. Louis Blues [http://thn.com/stlouis] practice showed that Saturday’s controversial ending to regulation of a 4-3 overtime loss [https://thehockeynews.com/nhl/st-louis-blues/latest-news/observations-from-blues-4-3-overtime-loss-vs-kraken] to the Seattle Kraken [http://thn.com/seattle] was a distant memory. The Blues (5-8-3) had already turned the page, more so focused on not only doing a better job of finishing games but putting together those complete games. “We just need to continue to get better, right,” Blues coach Jim Montgomery said. “We haven’t been playing complete 60-minute games. That practice was a hard push and players pushing each other to get better.” The ending was nothing that players want, to get bag-skated: It was such that the face-off circle at center ice was littered with players, who needed to catch their collective breath: But a full group went through the gamut of drills, including 2-on-2, 5-on-5, 3-on-3 and small-ice games. “A lot of that … that isn’t game-like because you don’t play 1-on-1s, 2-on-2s for 20 seconds in an area like that,” Montgomery said. “That’s the game, but you push yourself like that in practice so you can handle when you have moments like that stuck in the D-zone, which don’t happen very often, but they do happen.” The Blues had a good handle of the game leading 2-0 after the first period but their game fell off drastically, a lot to do with Seattle (7-3-4) picking up its game, and they were in a 2-2 game in the third before picking it back up, having a lead on Jordan Kyrou’s goal before a goalie interference call that wasn’t made enabled the Kraken to tie the game with 1.9 seconds remaining in regulation, and then Seattle won it in overtime. “The whole second period it just seemed like we were going uphill, they were going downhill,” Montgomery said. “We’ve got to break the momentum. We only had two shifts where I thought we broke the momentum for a little bit, then it came right back at us.” The Blues seemed to get stuck once they reached the neutral zone. “We got pucks to wingers, and I thought wingers stood still trying to make plays, and they were over top of us, and that’s when you’ve got to take your ice and you’ve just got to gain lines and be happy with gaining a momentum shift through a forecheck,” Montgomery said. Blues Assign Mailloux To Springfield, Recall Skinner [https://deweb-519a7.b-cdn.net/post-images/84d92d7c-cc0c-4240-ab43-1e9984043dc3.jpeg] Blues Assign Mailloux To Springfield, Recall Skinner Defenseman acquired from Canadiens for Zack Bolduc will go down to AHL, play big minutes, variety of roles and get a "reset," GM said [https://thehockeynews.com/nhl/st-louis-blues/latest-news/blues-assign-mailloux-to-springfield-recall-skinner] Image [https://deweb-519a7.b-cdn.net/post-images/50db02be-88b7-4afa-92e6-2497ac46c491.jpeg] For action-packed issues, access to the entire magazine archive and a free issue, subscribe to The Hockey News at THN.com/free [https://thehockeynews.store/products/print-subscription]. Get the latest news and trending stories by subscribing to our newsletter here [http://eepurl.com/i7OC4I]. And share your thoughts by commenting below the article on THN.com or creating your own post in our community forum.
