The Blues are safe at home, at least for a while, until the next rockslide rumbles in their direction. The Colorado Avalanche are in town.
After losing the first two games of their first-round series against the Avalanche the Blues will be searching for positives under the pile of pucks slammed into their net by Nathan MacKinnon and his destructive linemates.
The Blues must win tonight, in Game 3, at Enterprise Center. This is hardly a revelation. If the Blues lose this one to the Avs, then it’s hopeless. It’s as hopeless as a wish for the Colorado’s gutless, mindless Nazem Kadri to have character and integrity during his lifetime. impossible.
In 10 games against the Blues this season including the playoffs, MacKinnon has teamed with Gabriel Landeskog and Mikko Rantanen to outscore their Blues counterparts 16-0 overall, 8-0 at five-on-five. (That, according to Natural Stat Trick.) And don’t forget the trio’s eight power play goals against St. Louis.
And now the Avs can speed ahead with even less obstruction in front of them. The greatest show on skates can exploit a shorthanded, Blue Note defense left weakened and more vulnerable after Colorado’s cheap-shot hits took out Justin Faulk and Robert Bortuzzo. The thruway may be wide open.
In theory the Blues have a chance to get back into the best-of-seven series. You know, the time-honored Yogi Berra proverb: It ain’t over ‘till it’s over. Actually, Yogi never said it, even though it became part of his catalogue of famous adages.
The late St. Louis Hill legend and NY Yankee immortal originally offered that Yogi-ism in a different way and the New York writers gave it the shorthand treatment to make it snappier.
When asked if time was running out on his 1973 New York Mets, manager Berra replied, ‘Yeah, it’s running out, but you’re still not out of it until it’s automatic.”
It’s not as catchy, right?
Why the heck I’m writing about Yogi Berra?
Well, I can do that to stall before squaring up to reality: this Blues-Avs series is close to being over — automatic or not. Or as Yogi did say: “It gets late early out here.”
MoneyPuck gives the Blues a scant 4.1% chance of advancing to the second round. For now, the home team’s sole purpose is to survive for a return trip to Denver for a Game 5.
In Bluesville we keep talking about how the Blues will hit, hit, hit the Avs. And then hit, hit, hit them again. According to this plan, the Blues would use their physicality and toughness to hit, hit, hit the Avs and leave them hurt and meek and ready to submit.
There are at many problems with implementing this out of date cliche:
1–This isn’t 2019.
2–The Avs players aren’t speed bags. They won’t stay in place as you pound them repeatedly. You can’t hit something that you can’t catch.
3–Opponents have tried to pummel the Avs all season — hit ‘em and slow ‘em down! Sure. Good luck with that. Colorado finished with the most goals in the NHL, allowed the third-fewest goals in the league, and went 39-13-4 for the league’s best record.
4–The Avs had the most power-play opportunities in the league this season. The hit, hit, hit strategy works great … works great if the idea is to put Colorado on the power play. The Avs ripped the Blues for 13 PP goals during the regular season and already have three in the first two games of this series. That’s 16 power play goals against St. Louis in 10 games.
5–The cruel irony: whether playing within the rules or playing dirty, the Avs have won the physical engagement early in this series. I’m not talking about “hits” totals. In Game 2 we saw Colorado’s Mikko Rantanen eliminate Blues captain Ryan O’Reilly with a clean, smashing hit behind the net to set up the Avs’ first goal only 35 seconds into the first period. The Avs put bodies in front of Blues goaltender Jordan Binnington’s net for screens and deflections.
I don’t know how the Blues get back in this series. Not with Faulk and Bortuzzo (presumably) knocked out. Not with David Perron rendered inactive on the Covid-19 list. Not after Binnington gave his team a superb but ultimately unsuccessful opportunity to steal Game 1.
I mean, sure, there are things they could do.
Take an early lead, get up by a couple of goals and make the Avs chase the game. The teams have clashed 10 times this season and the Avs have scored the game’s first goal in eight of the 10.
Stay out of the box.
Tighten the forecheck.
Be smarter in positioning to reduce Colorado’s rushes.
“We made too many wrong mistakes,” Yogi once said of his team.
The Blues are definitely making too many wrong mistakes.
And the Blues need a whole lot more from their top players. O’Reilly works his tail off and always is an honorable competitor, but in this series he’s minus 6 and doesn’t have a point.
Vladimir Tarasenko is minus 4 with no points and only one shot on goal in his 34 minutes of ice time. Jaden Schwartz is a minus 3 with no points. Brayden Schenn scored a power play goal in Game 2 but had only two other shots on net during the first two games.
I could go on, but you get the point: the Blues need more points from their best guys.
Get to the net. Through two games the Avs have eight shots classified by the NHL as tip-in attempts. They’ve scored on three of the eight. The Blues have only two tip-in attempts in two games without a goal.
Make it more difficult for Avs goaltender Philipp Grubauer. In the first two games (at even strength) he’s faced an average shot distance of 52.4 feet. The average shot distance (even strength) against Binnington is 43.5 feet.
The Blues and Avs have clashed 10 times now this season, with Colorado winning seven of the games. In many of the losses the Blues have been outshot and at times overwhelmed, but they’ve hung in there. Surprisingly so.
That happened in the first two games in Denver, when the Blues had themselves in a 1-1 tie going into the third period of Game 1. Final score: 4-1 Avs. In Game 2 the Blues recovered from a 3-0 deficit to cut the lead to 3-2. When Colorado made it 4-2, the Blues struck back to make it 4-3. Final score: 6-3 Avs.
Even though Colorado has outscored St. Louis 10-4 overall, when we clear away the power-play goals and empty-net goals, this is what the teams have done at five-on-five: Avs 4, Blues 3. And that’s despite the Blues having only 39 percent of the shots on goal at five-on-five. Translation: Binnington is giving them a chance, and hope.
No doubt, the Blues are in a horrible situation. We can present theories and things-to-do lists, but with their shortage in manpower shortages and excessive mistakes, the Blues face dire circumstances.
But this ain’t supposed to be easy.
As Yogi once said, “If the world were perfect, it wouldn’t be.”
In addition to being a Hall of Fame catcher, Yogi was a hockey fan.
See? He knew.
Thanks for reading …
–Bernie
Please check out Bernie’s sports-talk show on 590-AM The Fan, KFNS. It airs Monday through Thursday from 3-6 p.m. and Friday from 4-6 p.m. You can listen live online and download the Bernie Show podcast at 590thefan.com … the 590 app works great and is available in your preferred app store.
