ST. LOUIS — If you’re just judging the St. Louis Blues game on Saturday based off the result, you’re thinking Ottawa Senators game all over again.
Well, the score line is exactly the same, this time an 8-1 drubbing at the hands of the Washington Capitals, a game in which Alex Ovechkin scored twice to get closer to Wayne Gretzky’s all-time goals record with his 862nd and 863rd goals (31 away from tying it), but it didn’t exactly come off like the game in Canada’s capital did 11 days ago.
For 40 minutes, I didn’t think the Blues played all that poorly. Yes, they allowed another first goal inside the first minute for the second straight game and the seventh straight time they’ve allowed the first goal, but as the game progressed, they had some really good scoring chances.
Alexey Toropchenko, Brandon Saad, Brayden Schenn, Zack Bolduc to name a few, had some real high quality, high danger scoring chances in the game.
They came out of the first tied 1-1, thanks to Scott Perunovich’s first NHL goal, and even in falling behind 3-1, their second period may have been even better from a scoring-chance perspective.
They made a few critical errors (Schenn allowing Dylan Strome to beat him without putting a body on him leading to Ovechkin’s 2-1 goal, and Jordan Kyrou getting his pocket picked yet again in the neutral zone that ultimately led to Jakob Chychrun’s 3-1 goal).
So one would think the home side can still come out with some pushback and get into the game. With the amount of quality scoring chances they had for 40 minutes, maybe they could crack Logan Thompson, who was brilliant with some of his saves.
Well, it wasn’t even close to what the Blues needed. Not by a longshot.
It was downright pitiful.
Five goals by the Capitals, who were playing like they were the one’s chasing the game and pushing the envelope.
Jordan Binnington was made the sacrificial lamb of poor and shoddy play. The result was a beating on home ice and getting booed off the ice. But the boos sounded more like the 18,096 were more stunned at what was happening in the moment as opposed to the entire night.
It fell off the rails quick, and it fell off hard.
“To be honest, I don’t really have an answer for that. It’s completely unacceptable,” Blues defenseman Justin Faulk said. “It’s just not right. I don’t think that should ever happen, a situation like that. We need to have respect for each other, the game. You can’t just go out there and play summer hockey for a period and think that’s alright at any…