DALLAS — The Blues dressed seven players Tuesday who began the year in the minor leagues. Two others were in their first games back from the COVID list.
What could possibly go wrong?
As it turned out, not much. The St. Louis/Springfield Blues continued their winning ways, snapping Dallas’ eight-game home-winning streak at American Airlines Center.
The Blues’ 4-1 victory also snapped a six-game winless streak (0-4-2) on the road for St. Louis, which had not won away from the friendly confines of Enterprise Center since a 3-2 shootout win Nov. 9 at Winnipeg.
That was a while ago.
They did it Tuesday with another patchwork lineup. Alexei Toropchenko, the latest callup from the Springfield Thunderbirds, made his NHL debut. Charlie Lindgren – yes, Charlie Lindgren – improved to 4-0-0 in goal. Veterans Tyler Bozak and Justin Faulk returned from COVID.
And when all was said and done, the Blues improved to 16-8-5; they are 6-1-2 over their last nine games, a period that roughly coincides with the latest round of injuries and COVID cases.
Dallas fell to 13-11-2.
The Blues had good chances early on shots by Vladimir Tarasenko, Bozak and Tarasenko again in the opening minutes against Stars goalie Jake Oettinger.
Later in the period, Toropchenko banged one off the bar. In that same sequence, a “Springfield Line” of Toropchenko, Dakota Joshua and Matthew Peca appeared to have a goal when the puck deflected in off Peca’s skate at the net front.
Game officials first ruled “goal” and then huddled and ruled “no goal” – because Peca had used a kicking motion. A league review followed where it was determined that it was indeed a good goal – no intentional kicking motion.
But wait. Next came a review to see if the play was offside.
After that review, it was indeed ruled that the Blues were offside, so it was no goal.
So yeah, just your basic yes-no-yes-no sequence. Officials did everything but test the puck for COVID before a definitive ruling was made.
In any event, it remained a scoreless game, and that’s how it stayed at the end of the first period. While the Blues had the better chances early, Dallas evened things out some as the period progressed.
Lindgren’s best save came midway through the period, when Stars veteran Joe Pavelski got a mini-breakout after a weird bounce of the puck found him in the clear. But Lindgren made the glove save to prevent a goal as Pavelski tried to go far side.
More often than not, Blues-Stars games are low-scoring, tight-checking affairs, without a lot of room to operate. And that’s how Tuesday’s game played out. With that in mind, Coach Craig Berube wanted his team to play tight and disciplined, avoiding careless passes and turnovers. And keep the Stars out of the slot and the front of the St. Louis net.
For the most part, Berube got what he wanted. Even so, Dallas came out strong to start the second period, getting the first seven shots on goal – all in the opening three minutes. Meanwhile, the Blues couldn’t take advantage of a Dallas hooking penalty on Jacob Peterson, who was attempting to break up a 2-on-1 rush with Tarasenko passing to Ivan Barbashev.
With the period winding down, Dallas finally broke through. After a period of extended zone time, with St. Louis failing on a couple of opportunities to clear the puck, Riley Damiani beat Lindgren backdoor with a high shot at the 15:57 mark of the period.
It was the first NHL goal in the first NHL game for Damiani – a 21-year-old from Mississauga, Ontario. (That’s the same hometown as former Blues defenseman Vince Dunn.)
Undismayed, the Blues tied the game up just 66 seconds later. It wasn’t an extended period of zone time, but the Blues quickly swarmed the Dallas net front, with Colton Parayko tapping in a loose puck on a backhand for his third goal of the season, but his second in four games.
Tarasenko and Pavel Buchnevich had the assists, and the game was tied 1-all with 2:57 left in the second period.
The Blues took their first lead of the game early in the third. Faulk, who played very well defensively Tuesday in his return to action, scored from the right point through traffic just 2:07 into the third. So much traffic by Joshua in fact, that the goal was changed to Joshua on a deflection.
But just for a minute. Then it was changed back to Faulk. Faulk-Joshua-Faulk.
Apparently they have a hard time making up their mind on things in Dallas. So for Faulk it was fifth goal of the season and marked the second time in four games the Blues got two goals from their D-corps.
With just under 12 minutes left in the third period, Tarasenko had a breakaway. Nothing came of it as Tarasenko crashed into Oettinger and into the Dallas net. Tarasenko complained – to no avail – that defender Jani Hakanpaa should’ve been called for a penalty. It sure looked like hooking or holding.
But the Blues got a power play – four minutes’ worth – when Radek Haksa was whistled for a high-stick on Buchnevich that drew blood. After the initial call, play was halted for a review.
Do you sense a trend here? But this time the call stood, and the Blues had four-minutes with the man advantage with 11:36 left to play. The Blues were pretty feeble for the first couple of minutes, to the point that Berube called a timeout with just over a minute of power play time remaining.
The ploy worked because after a shot by Tarasenko left a rebound, Ryan O’Reilly swooped in with one hand and got enough of the puck to get it across the line for a power play goal and a 3-1 lead with 8:27 to play.
OK, there was some puck luck involved because Dallas defender Esa Lindell inadvertently kicked the puck in after the O’Reilly swipe. For O’Reilly, it was his fifth goal of the season, and second of the season on the power play.
A power play goal by Tarasenko with 1:17, his ninth goal of the season.
