Game Recap: Blues vs. Flyers

First off, be sure you take the chance to follow me  @RandallRitchey and @Bluenotezone for the Blues news you’ll need to know.

Now getting into last night,how did we get to this point? Brett Hull was the face of hockey in St. Louis and honestly, to a lot of people, Brett Hull is who they think of when they think about hockey in St. Louis. Rightfully so. When you search Brett Hull on youtube, you’ll find Brett Hull tributes, Blues Decades Moments involving Brett, and one video that Kelly Chase spoke of last night.

Brett Hull's statue joins Federko's and MacInnis' outside the Scottrade Center. (image via blues.nhl.com)

In said video, it was time for the St. Louis Arena to come down. How did they do it? Well it was a goal by The Golden Brett that brought the building down. When Brett reached the scaffold to shoot the pucks across to the Checker Dome. A woman laid pucks down on the scaffold when Brett got there, his first question to one of the woman there was, “What are there three pucks for?” She replied, “In case you miss.”

Kicking two of the puck off the scaffold, he turned to her and said, “Don’t worry about it, I scored 86, I’ll be fine.”

Well he scored with that one puck and down came the St. Louis Arena, and up came the Kiel Center. Now, we know it as the Scottrade Center, and after last night, a new bronze statue stands in honor of the greatest goal scorer in St. Louis history, and the best pure goal scorer in NHL history.

You can check out pictures of it on the Blues website, here is a link to that. You can also watch the full ceremony thanks to FSN, here is that link.

Now, to the game, and what a game it was. Great back and forth action and some very solid play at both ends of the ice.

Louie did what he does to get the crowd going. Charles Glenn then did what he does best, and at the same time, got the entire crowd singing the National Anthem.

I have never heard the Scottrade Center sing like that and I will be honest, it gave me chills.

The crowd didn’t wait long to stand on their feet as B.J. Crombeen had a solid scoring chance just 15 seconds into the game. Brian Boucher made the first of many strong saves in net for the Flyers.

I couldn’t tell you the last time I witnessed so many stick infractions in one game. Five alone in the first period. Two of which resulted in a Blues 5-on-3 goal. First it was Claude Giroux headed to the box for cross checking at the 14:37 mark in the first. Less than 30 seconds later, Braydon Coburn tripped Alexander Steen for his second penalty in the first period.

Brad Boyes notched the first Blues goal of the season late in the first against the Flyers (image via blues.nhl.com)

It was Brad Boyes who tipped in a Erik Johnson point shot on the 5-on-3 to give the Blues the lead. Alexander Steen notched the secondary assist on the play and the Blues had a 1-0 lead late in the first period.

The period ended the same way, but it didn’t take long for the Flyers to answer in the second period. Only 2:15 into the second period, Danny Briere scored off a rebound in front of Jaroslav Halak to tie the game.

Yet the story of the second period circled around Cam Janssen and Brad Winchester. It was a scary one too.

Both Janssen and Winchester took a run at Oskars Bartulis. The Flyers defensemen saw both coming and managed to lean back away from the hits. In doing so, Winchester and Janssen collided together. This putting Winchester’s forearm right into Cam’s face. Cam proceeds to fall and smack his head on the ice.

Thank God for helmets because if it wasn’t for Cam’s, things could have been a lot worse for him.

Winchester was jumped by Scott Hartnell who recieved a 2-5-10 to put him out of the game for a while.

With a concussion and a sternum contusion, he’ll be out for the next two weeks. Here is the video of the hit and fight, I will tell you, it’s not easy to watch.

With Janssen sidelined for the next two weeks, Ryan Reaves got the call and will from the Blues and will play in his first National Hockey League game tomorrow against the Ducks. Once Vladimir Sobotka returns, which could be as soon as this Thursday, Reaves will likely be returned to the Peoria Rivermen.

Jaroslav Halak stops one of 29 shots against Philadelphia (image via blues.nhl.com)

The second period ended 1-1 and headed into the third, the Blues wanted to jump on chances to end the game,  yet they were out shot by a wide margin. 14-6 in the third period. Yet newcomer, Jaroslav Halak stopped all 14 shots and the game was headed to overtime.

Now when the Blues got Alex Steen and Carlo Colaiacovo for Lee Stempniak, most thought it was a decent trade. The Blues get a good young forward with offensive potential and an injury prone defensemen who had upside. In return, Toronto got a young forward who had already notched 27 goals with the Blues before the deal.

Now Colaiacovo, who played 108 games over a span of six seasons has played 130 in just two seasons with St. Louis. In Colaiacovo’s 131 game with St. Louis, he would be the hero.

Alex Steen dominated the play in the Flyers zone, took a nice backhander, battled hard behind the net, got the puck back from the Flyers defender, deked around a few players, tried putting another backhander on net but had that blocked. Blocked right back to Carlo Colaiacovo, who wound up and fired the puck as hard as he could, right past Boucher to give the Blues a 2-1 victory past the team who went to the Stanley Cup Finals last season.

I was impressed with guys like Alex Pietrangelo, David Perron, and Matt D’Agostini. They didn’t produce in the points column but all were strong when on the ice and all had strong chances offensively and some strong plays defensively as well.

You can watch the game highlights right on the Blues website, here is the direct link.

The Blues are undefeated this season, through one game, but hey we’ll take it.  The Blues will look to go 2-0-0 as they face the Anaheim Duck tomorrow at 1:00 p.m. in St. Louis.

The three stars for the night were Barret Jackman, Eric Brewer, and Jaroslav Halak. Not the right stars for me. Jaro was the right pick, but the two veteran defensemen were not. Here are my three stars of the game.

*** – Carlo Colaiacovo – GWG – 3 shots – 19:35 TOI

** – Alexander Steen – 2 assists – 3 shots – 19:54 TOI

* Jaroslav Halak – 29 saves – .98 GAA – .967 SV%