ST. LOUIS — No matter what happened Friday in St. Paul, Minn., between the Minnesota Wild and the Colorado Avalanche, coach Craig Berube said he wanted to see a strong closing effort from his hockey team. Strong forechecking, good defense, disciplined play.
Laying a foundation, if you will, for the beginning of the playoffs next week against Minnesota. He got none of the above in Friday’s 7-4 loss to the Vegas Golden Knights at Enterprise Center.
The defense was loose and the goaltending by Ville Husso was, uh, less than desirable. He gave up a season-high six goals, with the seventh Vegas goal coming on an empty-netter. Will the performance give Berube second thoughts about who to open the playoffs with in goal?
So the Blues finished the regular season with two losses and a 49-22-11 regular-season record. They finished third in the Central Division, with Minnesota getting home ice advantage in next week’s playoff series. The first two games of the series will take place in Minnesota
The Blues got off to a sluggish start. It was almost as if they noticed that Minnesota jumped to a 2-0 lead four minutes into its game with Colorado.
Whatever the reason, Vegas had a 7-1 edge in shots on goal at one point in the period and took a 1-0 lead when Mark Stone scored on the power play with 6:19 left in the first. It came on a fat rebound left by Husso, who got the start in goal, a rebound that just happened to go straight toward Stone.
The Blues had killed off 30 of the previous 31 power plays by the opposition until then, dating back to the start of their 16-game point streak at the end of March.
The Vegas power play was the result of a slashing penalty by Blues fourth-liner Logan Brown. It was his second slashing penalty in the period. So in 2:51 of ice time in the opening period, Brown was assessed with four minutes worth of penalties. In his previous 38 games with the Blues, he had been whistled for all of four minutes of penalty time.
But David Perron, back in the lineup after missing Tuesday’s Colorado game with a lower-body injury, evened the score with his 27th goal of the season. After a hustle play by Torey Krug kept the puck in the offensive zone, Perron connected on a rebound of his own shot with 3:55 left in the first period.
Vegas is known as a high-volume team when it comes to shooting the puck, annually being near the top of the league in shots on goal. That was certainly the case in the second period Friday when they peppered Husso with 19 shots on goal.
But the teams traded goals in the period, and it was a 3-3 game after two. First it was captain Ryan O’Reilly joining the 20-Goal Club. Krug’s shot from left wing got behind Vegas goalie Logan Thompson, a 25-year-old from Calgary playing his first game against the Blues.
O’Reilly pounced on the loose puck like a dog going after a bone and punched it in for a goal. That made him the ninth Blue with 20 goals this season, the second-most in franchise history, trailing only the 1980-81 team of Wayne Babych, Bernie Federko and Brian Sutter which had 10 players score at least 20 goals.
So it was 2-1 Blues but not for long. At the 8:08 mark, or 31/2 minutes after the O’Reilly goal, Jack Eichel scored on a net-front tip-in to tie it at 2-2.
Undismayed, the Blues took a 3-2 lead on a power play goal by Jordan Kyrou. Brandon Saad passed to Kyrou in the slot, and Kyrou had plenty of time to settle the puck and take the measure of Thompson, beating him high and glove side.
It was Kyrou’s 27th goal of the season; he had three assists Tuesday in Colorado. O’Reilly had two goals and an assist against the Avalanche. Imagine if O’Reilly and Kyrou get hot in the playoffs. In any event, it was 3-2 Blues.
But not for long.
In a goal Husso undoubtedly would like back, Golden Knights defenseman Zach Whitecloud beat him from a bad angle from the right of the net. Just as Husso dropped to protect the 5-hole, Whitecloud shot high to make it a 3-3 game with 4:28 left in the second.
Vegas then took the lead on another soft goal allowed by Husso. William Karlsson beat Husso, again short side, on an innocent-looking shot at the 3:20 mark of the third.
A fluke goal by Johnathan Marchessault then stretched the Vegas lead to 5-3. The puck popped in the air back toward Husso and before he could control it, Marchessault charged in to swat it into the net for his 30th of the season at the 6:41 mark.
But O’Relly didn’t feel like stopping at 20 goals. After Nicolas Roy was sent off for hooking Saad, O’Reilly banked home his 21st goal with 6:40 to play. That got the crowd of 18,096 – the Blues 28th sellout of the regular season – back into it.
Any euphoria was short-lived, because Eichel scored again, this time with 4:11 left to regain Vegas’ two-goal lead at 6-4.
