How much one game can change everything. The Hawks had a real stinker of a game Sunday night and were now going to have to cure their ills in St. Louis, against a team that is playing their first game with new Head Coach Ken Hitchcock. Rumors of mangled lines and benchings were the buzz of the intarweb. The Blues should not have been taken lightly, no matter what their record said. They have talent, a couple of pretty good netminders (even though Halak had played disturbingly awful), and lets not forget that aggressiveness. They also had a knack for playing the Hawks well. Lucky for the Hawks, two of their better offensive players, Andy McDonald and David Perron were on IR.
The Hawks didn't exactly start like they would have liked, giving up a goal in the first. Not only that, but they were pushed around pretty easily. The Hawks gave up a fairly weak powerplay goal early in the second, and even with powerplay chances, they couldn't get anything done. The same happened in the third as the Blues were able to sneak in another weak one. When the final horn blew, it was 3-0 Blues, and the Hawks had a day to sit and stew on this one. Looks like that one game stinker slide turned into two games.
- The KHL Locomotiv ceremony before looked really nice, with a bunch of classic Blues, like Hull and MacInnis, in attendance. Might have been nice if we could have watched the whole thing too, but the Comcast Sportsnet Pregasm Live studios were FAR more important.
- The new line combinations that were reported Monday pretty much held true last night, at least for a period. 10-19-67, 13-88-81, 85-36-15, 25-16-22, 2-7, 8-4, 5-32 were what Quenneville rolled out. And as I said, that setup only lasted one period. I mentioned Monday that, not to put much thought into the combinations, because they weren't a reality long enough to matter.
- One of the Hawks best chances was by...you guessed it...the previously undesirable Rosty Olesz. Wake up, Quenneville, Seriously.
- Well, all the centers were over 50% on faceoffs. Did a bunch of good, didn't it?
- The Blues took the lead against the the newest Frankenstein of defensive pairings Big Tank (Montador/Scott). Sbotka was able to power to the net after getting position on Tank and followed up his original shot, basically pushing the puck and Crawford into the net. Scott was rather over aggressive, trying to take Shattenkirk, and Oshie high at the blue line. This left Shattenkirk either a cross ice pass to the eventual goal scorer, or a chip up the boards to a streaking Oshie. Either way, he was fucked. Also, that was a BAD matchup. The Blues first line against the Hawks fourth, and third defensive pairing?
- Steve Konroyd claiming that Big Slow doesn't look out of place on the ice is a flaming insult to anyone that has played organized hockey. Are we watching the same #32, Steve? It makes me question his hockey expertise, with some of the goofy things he says.
- The second Blues goal was as a result of Car Bomb "kneeing" penalty, that led to another opposing PPG. Chris Stewart fairly easily tipped an Oshie pass past Crawford. Stewart pretty much had is way with Leddy, Hammer, and Hoss in the slot, and Crawford completely over pursued the play, and probably should have been able to get a piece of that.
- Just to put a cap on this one, Oshie scored an absolutely weak goal from the right circle. Crawford just dicked the dog on that one.
- Leave it up to Halak to have his best game of the year, and Crawford to have his worst. Three goals on 23 shots is deplorable, for NHL standards.
- Apparently, it's a requirement for the Blues to have at least two complete assclowns on the roster at any point in time. Back-ass isn't going anywhere, but since Cam Jannsen parted ways, the complete and total scumbag award goes to Ryan Reaves. He took a shot at Tank, Kaner and then Car Bomb before getting in the kerfuffle with Car Bomb. The spear in Car Bomb's gut officially put him in the assclown category. Complete and utter piece of shit. So much for that theory all the twatterheads keep bringing up, regarding Big Slow keeping teams from acting like assholes. Stupid people will drink any kool aid you feed them.
- The Big Slow saga turned to comic when he tried to incite Ryan Reaves after a whistle and Reaves laughed him off, and then later, the 5'11" 194 lb. Sobotka knocked his dookie down, fairly easily. Real intimidating.
- I'm tired of mentioning how bad the powerplay is. It's just terrible. It doesn't matter how many CHANCES you get if you can't finish. Not only that, but they are consistently giving up brutal shorthanded chances against. If it weren't for Dave Back-ass tripping over his enormous vagina, there could very well have been a shorthanded goal on that play. The worse it gets, the the more I feel they miss Soupie. While I was a fan of the trade and realize it had to be done, I voiced my concern for price it would have on the powerplay, at that time. Of course, everyone vehemently assured me that Leddy and Keith were more than capable replacements. My bad.
- While the Hawks had a few chances, they weren't exactly striking fear in the Blues. Granted they hit a hot goalie, but with the talent up and down this roster, they need to be able to "will" a couple of goals. If they had scored in the second, the came could have easily turned the game around.
