That was an interesting first period. The Blues looked a bit discombobulated by the Canucks’ physicality and couldn’t get set up in front of Luongo for a decent portion of the game so far. It took them a little while to figure out what was going on — they looked half asleep — so B.J. Crombeen decided to wake the boys up with this scrap against Dale Weise:
Unfortunatey, that managed to wake up Vancouver instead, with Alexandre Burrows scoring only 24 seconds later:
That goal is why it pays to know where the puck is at all times. The only one who did was Burrows, and when everyone else is unaware of where it is except one player, chances are excellent that he’s going to tap it home. Speaking of tapping things home, Jason Arnott netted his 11th goal of the season by being in the right place at the right time: in front of the net to take advantage of a pretty juicy rebound by Roberto Luongo:
After the goal, the play seemed to even up a bit. Shots are 10-7 in favor of the Blues. If St. Louis wants to win this – and I’m assuming they do – they need to tighten up and wake up.