There needs to be a mercy rule involving the Blues’ opposition: if St. Louis scores three goals, the opposition is allowed to throw in the towel. They haven’t lost in regulation yet when scoring three, and already in the first period they’re up 3-1.
The game didn’t start out amazingly well. Andrew Burnette netted the Blackhawks first (and only) goal so far just 2:51 into the period, roofing it over Jaroslav Halak. The speed and assist from Hossa should serve as a reminder just how dangerous the Blackhawks can be.
Luckily for the Blues, they’ve caught goaltender Ray Emery on a very bad night. Just a minute later, Jamie Langenbrunner slapped one right by Emery to tie the game right up.
That’s something that good teams do — allowing an early goal isn’t an occasion to panic or to be sloppy. You simply get that goal back from your opposition and keep plugging on, and that’s what the Blues did. Three minutes after Langenbrunner’s goal, Andy McDonald zipped the puck into a wide open net. The passing between Patrik Berglund, David Perron, and McDonald was perfect, and Emery couldn’t get back to his left nearly in enough time to block McDonald’s shot:
Not to be outdone, Patrik Berglund decided to get into the scoring race as well. There was a bit of a gap between these goals, with Berglund waiting nine minutes to do this:
Factor in a couple huge hits — the hit from Ryan Reaves on Jamal Mayers was absolutely explosive — and two fights, and one could say that these two teams aren’t fond of each other. Reaves’ hit caused Brandon Bollig to toss down the gloves and go instigate a fight in defense of a clean hit; Bollig got two for instigation, five for fighting, and a ten minute misconduct.
The Hawks outshot the Blues 13-6, which is something that the Blues really do need to tighten up on. The defense has been sloppier than it needs to be.