The St. Louis Blues aren’t going to score goals like the Tampa Bay Lightning did Thursday night and the Florida Panthers did Friday night.
They don’t have a Nikita Kucherov, who had an all-world assist on the Lightning’s last goal in a 3-1 victory over the Blues.
“The difference in the game, their top players made some high-end plays,” Blues coach Jim Montgomery said, speaking mainly of Kucherov.
They don’t have an Aleksander Barkov, who had an incredible shift in overtime that drew a penalty and then scored on the power play for a 2-1 OT win over the Blues.
“A high-end player, one of the best defensive players in the league, made a high-end play and then he made a great play on the power play,” Montgomery said.
Barkov …
– Hounded Holloway for puck
– Nearly stripped it from Schenn, forcing him to pass to Holloway
– Did strip Holloway and juked him on wall
– Protected puck from Schenn and then drew penalty from Schenn
– Scored OT winnerThis is 1-on-3 at the end of a 2-minute shift. pic.twitter.com/AfsRBLbEdh
— Jeremy Rutherford (@jprutherford) December 21, 2024
It may not be a surprise to many that the Blues aren’t producing offensively. Outside of Jordan Kyrou, who recently netted goals in a career-high five consecutive games, they don’t have a lot of scorers on the roster.
But the Blues should be scoring more than they are, and it’s costing them.
For the fourth time in their last five games, Montgomery’s club couldn’t muster more than one goal. It’s a total of seven goals in those five games, with the outlier being a 3-2 win over the New York Rangers last week, and as a result, the Blues are 1-2-2 in that stretch.
It’s hard to imagine, but it’s true: With just a little more offensive output, the Blues might have had wins over Florida and Tampa Bay, who are the Nos. 2-3 teams in the Atlantic Division, and the Dallas Stars, who are No. 4 in the Central Division.
They lost to Florida and Dallas in OT, and they were trailing Tampa Bay by just a goal in the second period before the Lightning grabbed a two-goal cushion.
“Right now, we’re searching for offense,” Montgomery said recently. “The last couple of games, we haven’t scored enough.”
In their last five games, the Blues are averaging just 1.43 goals per 60 minutes at five-on-five, according to Natural Stat Trick, which ranks No. 29 in the NHL in that stretch.
Before Oskar Sundqvist scored against Florida on Friday, the only three players who had scored in the last four games were Kyrou (two), Pavel Buchnevich (two) and Robert Thomas (one).
“We’re not scoring, and obviously everyone is frustrated right now as a team,” Blues captain Brayden Schenn said. “There’s been ebbs and flows of that throughout the year, and we’ve got to find a way to dig out of it.”
The Blues aren’t scoring on their golden chances, they’re not doing what they can to get the greasy goals, and they’re not converting on the power play.
In Friday’s loss to the Panthers, they had a three-on-one rush and a two-on-one rush early in the first period and came up empty on both.
On the three-on-one, Zack Bolduc, Scott Perunovich and Alexandre Texier were on the rush. But Bolduc’s pass to Perunovich at the front of the net was broken up, and the threat was thwarted.
Later, on the two-on-one, it was Jake Neighbours and Justin Faulk on the break, and Panthers goalie Sergei Bobrovsky came up with the save.
St. Louis and Florida both finished with 27 shots on goal Friday, and though the Panthers had more scoring chances (16-11) and high-danger shots (4-2), they weren’t overly dominating.
“It felt like an even game,” Montgomery said. “I really liked a lot of the opportunities. I thought offensively, we’re much better. A lot of Grade-A chances against a real hard defensive team, and Bobrovsky is a helluva goaltender in this league.”
But once again, the Blues aren’t getting inside often enough.
Here’s a heat map of the Florida game that shows the lack of shots coming from the interior.
Here’s a heat map of the Tampa Bay game, where the shots were coming from further outside.
“We need to be hungrier at the blue paint — bodies and pucks,” Montgomery said. “There’s a reason when you’re this far into the season and you have the goals for that we have. You just have to be harder offensively. It’s something as a group that we’re talking about.”
If they’re talking about it, why isn’t it happening?
“Just the will to get there, that’s the reality of it,” Schenn said. “I think everyone on this team can do a whole lot better job of getting there.”
Meanwhile, the Blues’ power play is nonexistent.
The unit hasn’t scored on its last 10 chances and has just 14 shots on those opportunities. It was 0-for-2 Friday with six shots and ranks No. 27 in the league (15.6 percent).
“I thought it was just OK,” Montgomery said. “I think our power play is not getting low enough. I think we’re not tight enough to the net. There’s too many plays above the top of the circles and you’re not going to generate a lot of scoring chances if we’re there. So we’ve got to find a way to get down low.”
On Friday, Montgomery moved newcomer Cam Fowler to the point on the top unit in place of Faulk, but the results weren’t any better.
Here’s a look at what Montgomery was saying about not being low enough, with both Kyrou and Fowler at the top and Thomas and Buchnevich above the dots.
But it’s not just the fact the power play isn’t scoring.
It’s been eight games since the Blues have been on the receiving end of three power plays in a game. Furthermore, they are tied with the Vegas Golden Knights for the fewest power-play opportunities in the league this season (77).
Add it up and the Blues aren’t getting nearly enough for their work.
In their last two games, they’ve had 104 combined attempts (including ones that were blocked or missed the net) and have just two goals to show for it.
“The last game (against Tampa Bay), we had enough puck possession time but weren’t at the right areas at the right time — screening goalies, pucks going to the net when people are at the net,” Montgomery said. “We haven’t been connected really well offensively that way.”
But for the second straight night, Montgomery insisted that if the Blues continue to play the way they have been, they’ll be fine.
“In order to hold that team to (27) shots and have (27) of your own, you’ve got to play real good hockey,” he said. “So, that’s the positive. The next step is coming out on top of the games like that.
“It’s about being able to replicate this for the majority of our games. Everybody has their off nights, but 95 percent of our games have got to look like that, and if we do that, we’re going to score more and we’re going to win more games.”
(Photo of Oskar Sundqvist and Sergei Bobrovsky: Sam Navarro / Imagn Images)
