Team stays in Dallas, gets in brisk practice with light-hearted flare on heels of
2-1 loss when offense was anemic again; Dunn leave team for personal reasons
DALLAS -- Fourteen hours after a gut-wrenching and frustrating 2-1 loss to the Dallas Stars, a game in which the Blues did many things right but win the all important scoreboard, the team was on the ice getting in some work at American Airlines Center but having some fun with it.
The Blues (34-22-4), mired in a cluttered Western Conference playoff race, tied for third place in the Central Division with the Stars, who own it based on a better points percentage because they've played two fewer games.
"We played hard. Obviously you don't win ... you've got to get two points," Blues defenseman Alex Pietrangelo said. "We're limited on the guys we have, too. We've got some guys that are banged up or whatever. There's not much else we could have done if you look at the numbers that were out there. A good chance to I guess have some fun, work on scoring some goals, getting a lot of 2-on-1's out there, which is kind of what we need."
"I think we're all pissed off, just like, frustrated obviously, we're close, then some days, we have to find ways to win, we're playing better hockey and it's just not working now," Blues center Paul Stastny said. "If we stick with it, we know it's going to turn around. Sometimes a day like today, when we don't play until Tuesday, kind of mental break, lets go back out there, have some fun out there, reset the minds, physically, mentally, probably more mentally than anything just because there have been so many games and sometimes when you're in a slump like this, you need to not think about anything, just enjoy each other and let loose a bit."
It was a quick and brisk workout that included, as Pietrangelo said, some 2-on-1's, 4-on-4 and 3-on-3 situations before coach Mike Yeo called it a day with his players after five three-quarter length of the ice skates.
"You don't get a lot of opportunities to work on things like 4-on-4, 3-on-3 and we were short a few bodies today," Yeo said. "So today was a good day for that.
"... That's just how we're approaching these three days. We're not going to grind them into the ground today. We played a really hard game yesterday, we're going to have an off-day tomorrow and then (Monday), we want to build towards Tuesday's game. I think the guys actually put in a lot of work today. They went every second shift in the 4-on-4 and they worked hard, but it's not as much mental stuff today and then Monday will give us a chance to ramp things up a lot harder."
The Blues had 18 of the 22 skaters on the ice, with defensemen Jay Bouwmeester, Colton Parayko, Robert Bortuzzo and Vince Dunn all absent.
Bouwmeester is no secret; he's been regularly skipping practices/morning skates but playing in games dealing with some lower-body ailments; Parayko was dealing with "stiffness" according to Yeo on Thursday but played Friday; Bortuzzo took a heavy body check from Radek Faksa in the final minute of the second period but finished the game, and Dunn had to leave the team and return home to Ontario to deal with a personal matter.
"It's personal for him. Just personal reasons," Yeo said. "He had to go home for something. He'll be back for practice on Monday."
The Blues, who hold the first wildcard from the Western Conference, are three points ahead of Minnesota, which lost 3-2 in a shootout to Anaheim Saturday; four ahead of Calgary before the Flames played Saturday night; five ahead of Los Angeles and six ahead of Colorado.
Yeah, it's a crowded crop.
"I would say this is as tight as I can remember for sure," Yeo said. "We haver to embrace that. I think teams that do are the teams that are going to come out on top. That's part of the challenge, dealing with that. Let's be gamers. Let's find a way when the stakes are the highest to go out and perform at our best."
Pietrangelo agreed.
"This is probably the best parity we've seen in a while now," he said. "But it's good for us because it's going to make us keep playing hard. There's a lot of people that are on our tails. We've got to find a way to get points."
One of three teams (Anaheim, N.Y. Islanders) to play 60 games, the Blues are vulnerable to those teams chasing them and to those ahead of them playing catch-up in games. All they can do is control what they do, and nipping in the bud a three-game losing streak (0-2-1) would be a good start.
"Right now, I think the biggest thing is to stay focused on ourselves," Yeo said. "You go one week and you're trying to catch the people ahead of you and then the next week, you're kind of looking at who's below. It's easy to get caught up in that stuff. Bottom line is if we take care of our own business, then we'll be in a good position at the end of the year. We haver to stay focused on that, showing up at the rink and being ready and being prepared. At the end of the year, if we do that night after night, then we'll be in a good spot."
And if players say they don't scoreboard watch?
"(It's) human nature," Stastny said. "There's people that look all the time and there's guys that only look when we win and only look when we lose. Because of those games in hand, you tend to watch that, but I think when it gets to ... we're at 22 games left. I think we're at that last stretch of the season where every game matters. It just makes it more fun when you realize how important two points are and you realize how hard it is to get."
* Goal-scoring challenges -- For the 14th time this season, the Blues were held to one goal or fewer in a game. They're 1-12-1 in those games. They've also lost seven games when allowing two goals or less.
Defense and goaltending more times than not hasn't been the problem.
The game leading up to offensive chances was fine. It was an all-too-familiar script on Friday: lack of finish.
The Blues outshot the Stars 29-16 -- yes, they held the explosive Stars to a season-low 16 shots, and on their home ice -- and held a 65-37 shot-attempt advantage. Yet they could only put away one Brayden Schenn power-play goal with 1 minute 14 seconds remaining, and it came on a 6-on-4 with goalie Jake Allen on the bench.
"We had some chances last night and had some good looks," Pietrangelo said. "We just couldn't put them in the back of the net, whether we missed a shot, puck was rolling, whatever it was. Those are the ones come playoff time when you've got the opportunities, you've got to bury them because they don't come quite as often. We've got to find a way to execute when we have the opportunities."
What was so successful for Stars goalie and St. Louis native Ben Bishop? Far too often, Bishop was able to see pucks, so that is a perferct example that the netfront presence, which has plagued the Blues often this season, was not good enough.
"You have to just keep drilling it in," Yeo said. "When I went back and watched the video again, there's a number of times where we are in pretty good spots and there's a couple other times where we leaked away. We're there but were not quite there. It's just something we have to get better at. I do think there's a couple times where we passed up opportunities to shoot pucks and we can't do that when you're not scoring a lot of goals. It's tough because there's so many things in the game that looked really good. For the majority of the game, I felt like we were in control of the game, but we can't be satisfied coming up short. We have to find ways to win hockey games. It's one play right now and that could be in the offensive zone, that could be in our zone, whatever it is, we have to find a way to make that play."
Defensemen, if they're not ripping pucks from the point, are looking to get pucks towards the net for tips, redirections, any sort of secondary and third-chance opportunity. When the Blues are able to score regularly, they come those types of varieties.
"Nowadays the way everybody blocks shots and get in front of the lanes, if you can find a way to get traffic. ... the goalies are too big and too strong now that to score goals, you've got to get in front of their eyes," Pietrangelo said. "Yeah, you'll score seven goals, but we've got to make it hard on the goalie. We've got to find a way to get more pucks to the net. You can get as many shots as you want, but if they're seeing all of them, it doesn't even matter."
Forwards know they will pay a price, whether getting hit with a shot or checked to death, whether legally or illegally.
But ...
"I think everyone has to do it," Stastny said. "You can't have certain players going to the net all the time and certain players playing on the outside. I think if you have that mindset, even if you're not there but you're making your way there, then the rebounds come there or you're second on the puck when it goes in the corner. If you don't have someone attacking, you can have someone in front. It's almost like the second or third chance, whether it's in front of the net or it goes in the corner, if you get those pucks, you sustain that pressure in the offensive zone. I think that's where mistakes are made and you capitalize on them. It's really not about that first chance, it's more about containing the puck and keep making them play on their heels and then 10 or 20 seconds, when we were scoring all our goals, we were making them defend in their 'D' zone and that's when they start getting tired and that's when they start cheating and that's when you start getting them.
"I think that mindset [Yeo] says is getting in front of a goalie's eyes, but almost get that second puck, get that second chance, because almost all goalies, if they see that first one, they're going to stop it, whether it's a screen or a rebound. It's more getting that second puck and getting second chances right away or whether it's 10 or 15 seconds later. Sometimes when we're pressuring ourselves by not scoring, I think everyone's trying to shoot right away or make a play right away instead of grinding them down a little bit. That's when we're at our best."
* Noteworthy -- The Blues will have Sunday off. They travel back from Dallas after a team dinner Saturday night. They'll practice Monday at the St. Louis Outlet Mall.
The Blues have three games remaining before the NHL Trade Deadline a week from Monday on Feb. 26; they host San Jose Tuesday and Winnipeg on Friday before playing at Nashville on Feb. 25.
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