ST. LOUIS — Remember those shooting, scoring Blues of October? You know the guys who jumped to a 5-0-0 start and averaged five goals a game in the process?
Well, they returned to Enterprise Center on Thursday night with a 4-1 victory over the San Jose Sharks. Whether this was a one-night stand or a long-running engagement remains to be seen. But the return of these Blues was widely appreciated by those in attendance.
The Blues thus ended a four-game winless streak (0-3-1), their longest since an 0-6-1 skid from March 22 through April 5 of last season. And they did it with Ville Husso in net, back from COVID, and two goals from Brandon Saad.
Improving to 9-5-2 for the season, the Blues did it against one of the NHL’s hottest goalies. James Reimer entered the game second in the NHL in both goals-against average (1.71) and save percentage (.943). On this night, the Blues went heavy on the pepper, peppering Reimer with a season-high 48 shots on goal.
After all but “outlawing” the drop-pass by his players in comments to the media Wednesday, coach Craig Berube underscored his point by sending out the Brandon Saad-Oskar Sundqvist-Ivan Barbashev line to start Thursday’s game.
Berube has dubbed them the “Identity Line” because in his mind, they represent the way he would like the Blues to play. Intense, direct, “north” hockey. Suffice it to say there were very few drop passes Thursday.
He also sent the third pairing of Marco Scandella-Robert Bortuzzo out for the start of the game. And there was a method to Berube’s madness there as well. Because three seconds into the contest, Bortuzzo dropped gloves with San Jose defender Jacob Middleton.
It was a brief scuffle, and Middleton quickly got Bortuzzo on the ice. Little matter. The tone was set. There was much more energy and intensity by the Blues, qualities that were glaring in their absence in Tuesday’s embarrassing loss to the lowly Arizona Coyotes.
The Blues were more direct on offense. They made it a habit of keeping the puck in and maintaining possession. There were a couple of hiccups on defense, but overall, they were much sounder on that end.
And the Blues were on it from the start. They peppered Reimer with 16 shots on goal in the opening period. Many were excellent chances – and one got through.
With Kevin Labanc in the box for tripping Tyler Bozak, the Blues put on a clinic in how to run the power play. They got six shots on goal here against Reimer with the last of the six going in. On a net-front pass with Torey Krug and Brandon Saad in Reimer’s lap, Saad scored his fifth goal of the season – and third this season against San Jose – with a tap-in at the 10:25 mark of the period.
There’s something about the sight of teal that gets Saad going. In 28 career games against San Jose, it gave him 25 points (12 goals, 13 assists) against the Sharks. (And that point total would grow later.)
Saad has gone back and forth – between the first and second power play units this season, often switching back and forth with Pavel Buchnevich. He made the most of his time on the first unit Thursday.
Saad’s goal ended a streak of eight consecutive games where the Sharks had scored in the first. And for a while, it looked like the streak had grown to nine games, when crafty Logan Couture whizzed around Krug at the blueline, and skating in uncontested, beat Husso five-hole.
But the Sharks were clearly offside on the play and it didn’t take long for a Blues challenge to show that was indeed the case. So no goal, and it remained scoreless at the 7:17 mark.
Husso was sharp from the start. Among his early highlights, he stopped Erik Karlsson on a breakaway and then in one sequence denied Marc-Edouard Vlasic and Nick Bonino net front.
Enterprise Center chants of “Huuuss!” are starting to become a ting.
The Blues added to their lead in the second period with a pair of goals in which the assists made the play. Scott Perunovich got things going on the second goal, skating all the way up ice, and then once below the goal line passing to Pavel Buchnevich in the left circle – right on the tape by Perunovich. Buchnevich then fed Robert Thomas who was driving the net and netted his second goal of the season 95 seconds into the second period.
It was the first NHL point for Perunovich.
Midway through the second period, Saad got his second goal of the night with Sundqvist doing the heavy lifting. Sundqvist carried the puck into the zone, with San Jose defenseman Mario Ferraro hacking away at him from behind, before dishing to Saad for a tap-in.
In between those two Blues’ goals, San Jose ended Husso’s shutout streak at 163 minutes 2 seconds – and 86 consecutive shots on goal – when rookie Jonathan Dahlen snuck between Ryan O’Reilly and David Perron out front for his seventh goal of the season.
So it was a 3-1 lead for the Blues after two periods, and they had all kinds of chances – including hitting two posts on the same power play. After two periods they had 35 shots on goal, just five shy of their season high for an entire game.
The Blues didn’t let up in the third period. Just 69 seconds into the period, Jordan Kyrou took a feed from David Perron, streaked down left wing and blistered a wrister past the glove of Reimer to make it a 4-1 game.
