DENVER — The stakes were high for the Blues as they faced the Avalanche on Friday night at Ball Arena.
Winless in their past four games but feeling a little better about how they were playing, the Blues were looking for some good vibes and, hand in hand with that, some points after four days off. The race for the fourth and final playoff spot in the West Division is getting tighter. The Blues need wins.
“I think it’s huge,” Blues coach Craig Berube said Friday morning. “I think this game could put us a good frame of mind to be honest with you. … These are big games this weekend against a real good opponent.”
If the stakes were high, the odds were long. Colorado came in 10-0-2 in its past 12 games and had scored four or more goals in nine of its previous 10 games. The Blues had scored four goals total in their past four games. So the challenge for the Blues would be two-pronged, to both stop Colorado from scoring while resuscitating their own offense. It was a tall order.
While the Blues held the Avs offense in check despite plenty of chances, their own offense couldn’t rise to the occasion in a 3-2 loss to the Avalanche. It bodes well going forward that the Blues can go toe-to-toe with one of the league’s pre-eminent teams, but it sooner or later, they’ve got to start winning games if they really want to feel good about what’s going on.
The Blues are now winless in five and will try to break the streak again on Saturday in their last game in Colorado in the regular season.
The Blues had a late chance in the third period on a power play and hit a post and didn’t score. Otherwise the period belonged to Colorado, which at one point had outshot the Blues 17-3 in the third.
The Blues wanted to control the tempo against the league’s hottest offense, and they did that early, but what they didn’t do was keep the game five-on-five. Twice in the first period, the Blues were called for penalties and twice they paid for it.
The first came with Kyle Clifford out for slashing and just past one minute into the power play, Brandon Saad got the puck down low and passed to Nazem Kadri in front of the goal. His shot went off the post, but Saad was still in the neighborhood and tapped the rebound in to make it 1-0.
The lead was exceedingly short-lived. Mike Hoffman, back in the Blues lineup after being a healthy scratch on Sunday against Anaheim, took a pass from behind the net from Brayden Schenn and threaded the puck through a puck-side hole between goalie Jonas Johansson’s arm and the post and it was tied 1-1 just 26 seconds later. It was Hoffman’s first goal since March 17.
It was the start of busy first period for Hoffman. Two and a half minutes later, he had a breakaway, but couldn’t fake out Johansson and his shot was blocked. Late in the period, with the Blues on a power play, he uncorked a one-timer that hit the post.
The Blues got Ivan Barbashev back in the lineup on Friday but in the first period, they lost center Robert Thomas. Defenseman Jake Walman was shooting the puck up ice and it caught Thomas, skating across the ice in the neutral zone, in the head, dropping him to the ice. Thomas slid into the boards and eventually got up and skated off, mostly on his own though with trainer Ray Barile holding the back of his jersey, and he went to the room, holding the right side of his face. Thomas missed the rest of the first period, but was back on the ice when the second period began.
A second Blues penalty, this time on Torey Krug for holding, gave Colorado another power play, and this time it needed just 12 seconds to score. Nathan MacKinnon got the puck down low to Jordan Binnington’s right, made a quick, half-spin move and wound up by himself in front and it went in off Binnington’s pad with 5:17 to go in the first.
MacKinnon got his second goal about 30 seconds after the Avalanche had killed a Blues power play. He took the puck in his own end, skated around Marco Scandella and then shot between Binnington’s legs, who looked heavenward in disappointment after the puck went in.
The Blues got back within a goal when David Perron scored on a four-on-three just seconds before it was to go to a five-on-three. Colorado had a power play when a stickless Zach Sanford was called for holding. But then Mikko Rantanen was called for interference while on the power play and Samuel Girard was called for throwing a stick when he tried and failed to flip a dropped stick back to Cale Makar.
