Colorado @ St. Louis : Game Recap

Sorry this took so long to get posted. It’s been a long day in my household. But lets get this started.

Last nights game was one of those in which you hold onto your seat all game, just ready to erupt in celebration. The Blues hold pressure, in the zone, get a scoring chance, no goal, back down the rink and try again. Basically all game long.

Unfortunately, that’s pretty much all that became of it. Many scoring chances and very little scoring. The Blues one thing to blame for their loss last night and that was inability to score on the powerplay. They had chances after chances to score and could not finish.

Halak made his Blues last night in a loss to Colorado.

It was Kevin Shattenkirk who opened the scoring late in the first period. A shot from the point made it way past Jaroslav Halak to put the avalanche up. Halak didn’t have any line of sight or a chance to stop the shot as he was screened in front.

”Yeah, I was screened. There were at last two or three guys standing in front of me.. The good thing is, it doesn’t count. It’s only a preseason game.”

The first ended in the Blues down 1-0. They out shot Colorado 7-6 in the first period and would add on even more in the second.

Patrik Berglund tied the game with a shorthanded goal assisted by TJ Oshie less than five minutes into the second period. The Blues started building momentum. Their attack started to increase and it looked like they would take control of the game.

The goal was scored on Peter Budaj who stopped 10 of 11 shots. Trevor Cann finished the game for the Avalanche in goal.

The Blues pressure wouldn’t stop Colorado from tacking on two goals in a span of 31 seconds to give Colorado a two goal lead. Unfortunately for the Blues, the score would remain the same throughout the remainder of the game.

The story of the game for St. Louis had to be their inability to score on the powerplay. Erik Johnson said it himself.

”There were some good things we did. We moved the puck well, the penalty kill as pretty good. The powerplay can be better, but there are things to improve. That is the beauty of it all, we have a lot of room to improve.”

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I tried my best to watch as many players as possible and see as much about the players as I possibly could. So here I will try and give some player analysis.

First off, the players that impressed me the most.

Alex Pietrangelo, this kid is man now. Physically he was strong all game long. Controlled the play when he was on the ice. Closed gaps quickly. Cut off shooting lanes and played a strong offensive game. Very good poise by this young man. In my opinion, there is no way he doesn’t make the team. He is NHL ready in all way possible.

Matt D’Agostini looked like the kid in Montreal before taking the vicious hit from Andrew Ladd. He is fighting in the corners, throwing his body around and making good decisions with the puck. Playing with T.J. Oshie and Patrik Berglund, he had chances galore. There is a lot of fight in him, a lot more than we saw last season.

T.J. Hensick played a game I didn’t expect to see out of him last night. A strong defensive game. Playing on the penalty kill, he had chances to prove that he has that part of the game in his repertoire. He looked strong in the first and the third period but seemed tentative in the second.

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Now there were players I thought just didn’t play up to what they could.

T.J. Oshie looked rusty in the first period. His game improved later on but he made a lot of mistakes in the first period. Since this is only the first preseason game, I am really not to worried about it.

Brett Sonne, though he was very tenacious, he just didn’t look like he belonged up with the big boys. He doesn’t seem to far off and could probably handle a little time in the bigs, but there just isn’t anyway I see him making the roster out of camp. He needs more time to develop in Peoria.

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The Blues brawl with the Avs in last nights game.

It was after Patrick Bordeleau threw a bit of an elbow on T.J. Hensick and tried clipping Barret Jackman that the fist started flying. Both Jackman and Anthony Peluso went after Bordeleau, which caused a riot and all the players on the ice, except the goalies joined the fray.

Dan Winnik tried grabbing anything that moved, which had Brett Sonne trying to hold him down. Peluso was throwing punches in the pile at Bordeleau while Jackman had a hold of him as well.

T.J. Hensick eventually pulled Ryan O’Reilly away from the pile. Sonne had locked up Winnik and all players, other than Bordeleau were calming down. The officials got Peluso in the box, and were taking Jackman and Bordeleau to the sin bin as well. Jackman was calmly taunting the Colorado forward while Bordeleau wanted every piece of Jackman.

Something Bordeleau said must have went to far as he was trying to fight his way away from the officials and get to Jackman. This caused Peluso to stand in the box start mouthing at Bordeleau.

Patrick Bordeleau and Anthony Peluso were both ejected from the game. Dan Winnik received a roughing penalty and Barret Jackman was handed a double minor for roughing giving a powerplay to Colorado, who failed to score.

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The Blues pulled Halak and tried getting the two goals back but neither team could score. The game ended 3-1 and the Blues knew that though they controlled most of the game, they have room to improve.

The Blues flew to Minnesota today for their game against the Minnesota Wild which will be underway in less than an hour. Lets hope for a better game today for our St. Louis Blues.