ST. LOUIS — The St. Louis Blues knew exactly the kind of game they’d be in for Saturday against the Philadelphia Flyers on Saturday.
It would be like plodding through mud, or quicksand, with little to no room, particularly in the middle of the ice. Patience would be a virtue, especially against a team that loves to sacrifice the body and block shots.
The Blues sort of had to plod along in this one, be patient, rely on outstanding goaltending from Jordan Binnington but ultimately in the end, fell 3-2 in overtime on Matvei Michkov’s OT winner 28 seconds into the extra session.
After a sludgefest early on, it turned into an entertaining hockey game in the end, each side trading punches until the Flyers rookie slipping a backhand through Binnington on a breakaway after Robert Thomas had the puck swiped off his stick by a sliding Travis Konecny.
Let’s dive into the three takeaways:
* Too many odd-man rushes/breakaways surrendered — For the good the Blues (11-12-2) were able to accomplish, it was a game in which reads weren’t good at times, and in essence the Flyers were able to break out with too many odd-man rushes, including a number of breakaways in the game.
“We started off slow. A lot of whistles in the beginning so it was hard for either team to get into a rhythm,” Blues coach Jim Montgomery said. “I thought their forwards stretching us out and us not covering over the top caused a lot of issues for us on our forecheck and more importantly, tracking back. We can learn from that, but we’ve also got to learn to get over top and not give up that many odd-man rushes.”
The slow start can be attributed to not getting into much of an offensive rhythm.
“We didn’t get off to the start that we wanted. It felt a little flat, but I think we pulled together there at the end and almost had the comeback, so overall, it wasn’t a bad effort,” Blues forward Dylan Holloway said. “I thought it was a good effort by our team and I think we’ve just got to focus on our start.
“We’ve just got to make sure our F3’s reloading. Sometimes we get a little too antsy in the o-zone and we’re kind of diving in a little bit. That’s what causes the odd-man rushes. We’ll get that dialed in at practice and I’m sure it’ll be better going forward.”
* Goaltending was spectacular — Jordan Binnington was the Blues player of the game for all the right reasons. The Blues goalie kept his team afloat and gave them every opportunity to at least grab a point, if not two.
“I did like the fact that our goaltender was so good that he gave us an opportunity to come back and tie the game up, not once but twice,” Montgomery said.
“It’s tough. I really wanted that one,” Binnington said. “It was a really fun game, chances at both ends. By the end, the rink was so loud. It was fun playing in front of the home crowd there. We really wanted that one, but we fought hard. I think just that third period showing that resiliency to tie that game up late was big for us. We’ve got to take that with us moving forward and keep working.”
Alexey Kolosov was spectacular himself, thwarting high-end scoring chances by Jordan Kyrou and Mathieu Joseph on breakaways in the game before nearly stealing both points for Philadelphia in regulation when he kicked out Justin Faulk’s rebound effort prior to Jake Neighbours scoring at 19:41.
“He was outstanding, and so was the other guy,” Tortorella said of Kolosov. “But ‘Koly,’ he played outstanding.”
* Third period resiliency — It looked bleak, because the Flyers were playing their blueprint brand of clogging the middle of the ice and playing compact.
The Blues just had to get to skating harder and finding a way.
Holloway finally tied it with 8:41 remaining with a whistler from the high slot, top shelf, glove side:
And even after an unforced error by Brandon Saad that led to Tyson Foerster’s go-ahead goal at 12:02, the Blues stayed aggressive and tied it when Neighbours poked home a loose puck after Kolosov made a brilliant save on Justin Faulk:
“The resiliency that our team showed in the third,” Montgomery said. “I thought that we had more energy, more life, I thought the crowd was good in the third because we started skating, we started making plays, we started going to the net a lot harder. Getting a point is good, but we’ve got to learn and grow from this.”
Montgomery switched his lines up, trying to generate more offense and it worked.
“I thought we had more energy, more life,” he said. “Left one line together, switched up three. When you’re down 1-0 naturally going into the third have a push and I was glad to see that we had the push. I don’t know if it had anything to do with the lines.”
Holloway added, “Everybody was playing good tonight. We just needed to switch something up and it ended up paying off. I think it was a good coaching move by Monty, but I think the big thing going forward I guess is just getting our start better, kind of coming up with a little more jump.
“I think there wasn’t any time during the game that we didn’t believe we can come back and win. We felt good in the third period. We were pushing, we knew it was going to come and then we got one, we got two and we were pretty amped up going into OT. It’s just hockey, but at the end of the day, it’s a good push by us and it’s a good testament to us knowing that we’re a resilient group and can come back in those games.”
