MONTREAL — The Blues still can’t get this road thing down. A .500 team away from home most of the season, the Blues were upset by the Montreal Canadiens, 3-2, in overtime Thursday at Bell Centre.
“I think when you go on the road, you gotta understand that teams, they play well at home,” coach Craig Berube said prior to the game. “It depends who you’re playing obviously. But you gotta make sure that you’re managing the puck well. ... You gotta play real good defense, especially on the road. It’s very important. I think we’re getting better. We gotta keep improving.”
Instead of improving Thursday night, the Blues took an embarrassing step backward. The Canadiens finally got out from behind the 8-ball, improving to 9-33-7 and snapping a 10-game winless streak.
Due to COVID-19 restrictions, only 500 fans were in the stands — so not much of a home-ice advantage. It didn’t matter. Instead of banking two more points, the Blues fell to 28-1-6. Next stop is Saturday in Toronto, one of the league’s top teams.
As for Montreal, the Blues split the season series, having won 4-1 in St. Louis in December.
Until Thursday, the Blues hadn’t played here at Bell Centre, one of hockey’s meccas, since Oct. 12, 2019 — a 6-3 loss. In the press box dining area prior to that game, general manager Doug Armstrong presented the team’s eastern-Canada scouts Stanley Cup rings from the prior season.
There was nothing to celebrate Thursday. After a Pavel Buchnevich goal gave the Blues a 2-1 lead with 1:19 left, Cole Caufield tied the game 2-2 with just 8.7 seconds left and then got the game-winner at the 2:22 mark of overtime.
Montreal looked like anything but an eight-win team in the first period. The Blues talked about the speed and rush ability of the Canadiens after the morning skate — and they weren’t empty words.
Aided by a couple of power plays, the Canadiens outshot the Blues 11-9 in the opening period and had several other sequences where it looked like they had a dangerous chance in the making but either didn’t get a shot off or didn’t get a shot on goal. The Canadiens did a lot of work behind the St. Louis net, circling around and then sweeping in front for opportunities.
It wasn’t the best of periods for Robert Bortuzzo. The veteran Blues defenseman was whistled for two of the three St. Louis penalties; and the other, by Klim Kostin, was a 4-on-4 because there was also a call against Montreal on that play.
Montreal got its offense cranked up on Bortuzzo’s first penalty, an interference call drawn by Brendan Gallagher. Although the Blues killed it off, Montreal carried the momentum from that penalty and got on the board 2 1/2 minutes later.
Again working behind the St. Louis net, Arturri Lehkonen skated towards the net, drawing Bortuzzo away from Paul Byron. That left Byron all alone in front of Ville Husso for an easy goal — his first of the season in his 500th NHL game. That came with 12:37 left in the period.
Montreal continued to control possession time, with the Blues usually one-and-done on their shots against goalie Sam Montembault, making his first appearance against the Blues. And when Bortuzzo went off again, this time for tripping Lehkonen with 3:16 left, the Canadiens got another chance on the power play.
But the Blues turned the short-handed situation into a short-handed goal, when Buchnevich poked the puck past a Montreal player, triggering a 2-on-1 rush with himself and Robert Thomas. In the end, Buchnevich dished to Thomas for a tap-in goal and a 1-1 game with 1:34 remaining in the first period.
It was Thomas’ seventh goal of the season and the first short-handed goal of his NHL career. Then again, until this season, Thomas had seen next to no time on the penalty kill.
The Blues got their first power play early in the second period. But they didn’t get a full two minutes with the man advantage because Ryan O’Reilly was whistled for a rare penalty — tripping Montreal’s Nick Suzuki at the 7:17 mark.
So after 35 seconds of 4-on-4 play it was back on the penalty kill for the next 1:25 for the Blues. It was only O’Reilly’s second penalty of the season; the first took place way back on Nov. 27 against Columbus. In any event, the Blues’ fifth-ranked penalty kill unit got out of it.
But they went back on the PK just 3 1/2 minutes later when Justin Faulk went off for cross-checking Laurent Dauphin to the ice. Another penalty, another kill for the Blues. Nonetheless, all that time on the power play kept Montreal on the attack and the Blues out of sync.
St. Louis only had four shots in the period — they were outshot 9-4 — and had only 13 shots on goal total entering the third period. Husso was on his game, with one of his best stops coming when Lehkonen snuck behind the Blues’ defense later in the period and took a point-blank shot practically in Husso’s lap.
Montreal didn’t leave the Blues much space in the neutral zone, checking tightly and getting a stick in the way. The Canadiens simply didn’t let the Blues control the possession time and get as many shots as they did in their two prior games against Ottawa and Chicago.
The Montreal power plays continued in the third period. With just under 12 minutes to play, Nikko Mikkola was sent to the box for high-sticking. And angry Craig Berube shouted at the officials: “That’s 5-to-1, 5-to-1.” In case the officials had trouble hearing over the artificial crowd noise, Berube also made a “5-to-1” hand signal.
It must have worked, because the Blues got their second power play of the game shortly thereafter, and just went that power play was ending – without a goal – they got another power play. But once again, the Blues couldn’t get much going. In fact, disaster almost occurred when a Thomas turnover led to a breakaway by Dauphin. But Husso made the stop and it remained a 1-1 game.
But with the clock winding down and overtime looming, it didn’t stay 2-1. Vladimir Tarasenko fed Buchnevich and from a tight angle Buchnevich got one past Montembault with 1:19 to play. It snapped a seven-game goal drought for Buchnevich and was his 16th goal of the season.
But with the goalie pulled, the Canadiens tied it with 8.7 seconds left on a backdoor goal by Caufield. For the first time since Dec. 12 against Anaheim, the Blues were going to overtime.
